Scottish Government contract rule changes could harm local businesses

Our city is missing out on public contracts

It’s part of my job as your MSP to champion Dundee businesses so we can keep and attract jobs to the city at a time when we have never needed them more.

A number of employers have told me our city is missing out on public contracts from the Scottish Government because of new rules being put in place by the Edinburgh government.

I understand they are insisting that only firms with an annual turnover of more than £40 million can tender for contracts.

The preferred contractors list now means firms have to be selected from a central list of preferred businesses. If a Dundee firm fails to make it on to that list, they can no longer do work for NHS Tayside or Dundee or Angus Council.

This preferred list even means the Care Commission, based on the waterfront, has to use companies outside the local area for jobs like printing their brochures and local firms, with whom they had good and productive relationships, are losing out.

When Jack McConnell moved civil service jobs out of Edinburgh and put the Care Commission in Dundee, the employment reasons were twofold.

One was to shift these well-paid jobs out of the central belt and give other parts of the country a fairer share of secure, pensioned, public sector jobs.

The second was the impact public sector spending can have on the local economy.

Public sector spending can give small and medium-sized enterprises a regular and secure income they can use as a springboard to attract private contracts and grow their businesses.

Why, then, has the Scottish Government changed procurement rules so public spending is less able to support our local economies?

We now have a situation where the Scottish Government’s actions seem to be harming local firms rather than supporting them.