Contract Categories
Goods and services procured by the public sector are grouped into three distinct categories of commodity: A, B and C.
A snapshot of how these contracts interrelate is contained in
Public Sector Procurement Vision (P Point 195Kb)
These groupings define how and by whom contracts are established.
The
Review of Public Procurement in Scotland (published in March 2006), carried out by John McClelland, defines the categories as follows:
Category A
Category A definition
- Goods or services are standard or of a similar nature across the largely common requirements of users in the public sector in Scotland.
- Where the utilisation of contracts established by a single central organisation would offer:
- a) improved cost through consolidated procurement volumes and value
- b) optimised use of scarce procurement resources and skills and to concentrate market intelligence information
- Where a single contracting interface facilitates the efficiency and competitiveness of suppliers.
More about Category A commodities
Category B
Central Government Centre of Procurement Expertise (CGCoPE) will have responsibility for leading, facilitating and supporting collaborative procurement across Central Government.
By working together the main objective is to establish a broad range of sector specific contracts (Category B) and arrangements designed to optimise benefits, savings and efficiencies for the Scottish Government, its Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies.
Category B definition
- Fall outside scope of Category A allocated Goods/Services
- Where 2 or more Central Government organisations can collaborate
- Goods or services are standard or of a similar nature across the largely common requirements of users in Central Government organisations
- Where the utilisation of contracts established by a single organisation would offer improved cost through consolidated procurement volumes and value optimised use of scarce procurement resources and skills to concentrate market intelligence information
- Where a single contracting interface facilitates the efficiency and competitiveness of suppliers
More about Category B commodities
Category C
Where commodities and services are neither categorised as A (National Contracts) nor B (Sector Specific Contracts) then they are classified as Category C.
These contracts will be let for individual organisations, on a non-collaborative basis, as the requirements tend to be specialist or unique.