Foreword

Procurement is pivotal to the achievement of Transport Scotland’s corporate goals, and enables us to leverage our influence as a contracting authority to deliver outcomes that are good for Scotland. Our procurement activity supports the Scottish Government’s four key priorities of: eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency, and ensuring high quality and sustainable public services as set out in the Programme for Government 2024-25: Serving Scotland.

Transport Scotland's National Transport Strategy (NTS2), published in 2020, aligns with these priorities and presents the vision for Scotland’s transport system until 2040, which is:

“We will have a sustainable, inclusive, safe and accessible transport system, helping deliver a healthier, fairer and more prosperous Scotland for communities, businesses and visitors”

The NTS2 vision is underpinned by four priorities to: reduce inequalities, take climate action, help deliver inclusive economic growth and improve our health and wellbeing. This vison and the Strategic Transport Project Review 2 form the basis upon which we take decisions and evaluate the success of Scotland’s transport policies going forward.

The vision and objectives of NTS2 are also consistent with Scottish Government policy and the procurement priorities we detailed in our Transport Scotland Corporate Procurement Strategy 2023-2024. This Annual Procurement Report for 2023 - 2024 highlights how we delivered against these priorities, which aligned with the Scottish Government’s Public Procurement Priorities that were current during the reporting period. In addition to funding allocated by grants and subsidies to public and private organisations, Transport Scotland’s spend on procured contracts during the financial year 2023-2024 was over £770 million. An important part of this (12%) was direct spend with Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Procurement also enables us to deliver policies and priorities that support the Scottish Government in achieving the National Outcomes. Our vision for procurement is:

“To support the delivery of value for money, sustainable and innovative infrastructure and services in fulfilment of the Scottish Government’s ambition and vision for transport and Transport Scotland’s corporate commitments through a strategic and systematic approach to procurement.”

This Annual Procurement Report 2023-2024 sets out how we are providing value for money and ensuring compliance with our obligations to provide sustainable, inclusive, safe and accessible transport infrastructure and services. This supports Scottish Government’s vision of putting public procurement at the heart of a sustainable economy to maximise value for the people of Scotland. Transport Scotland continues to focus on placing sustainability at the heart of all of our procurement activity as we deliver on the priorities of the Scottish Government.

Alison Irvine
Chief Executive
Transport Scotland