FOI23/24 112 Fair Trade Purchasing

Date published: 08/12/2023

I am seeking some data regarding your annual fair trade purchasing. This year marks 10 years of Scotland being a Fair Trade Nation.

The Scottish Fair Trade Forum is compiling information on fair trade purchasing within public bodies, institutions and organisations across Scotland for the 2022-23 edition of its report into Fair Trade expenditure and policy commitments within Scotland’s public sector.

To understand how Scottish Qualifications Authority’s procurement policies were previously reported on and to read our recommendations, please review our 2019-22 edition here: Report into Fair Trade Expenditure and Policy Commitments within Scotland's Public Sector 2019-2022

Can you kindly provide data on Scottish Qualifications Authority’s total annual spend on fair trade goods across the April 2022 - March 2023 financial year?

Please include a breakdown of:

Vendor name

Whether they were contracted/non-contracted

A description of item(s) purchased

The total value per order

Items purchased for resale (if applicable)

Please also provide your general policy on the procurement of fairly and ethically traded goods and services, in line with section 15(5)(b)(v) of the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014.

I am aware that, given potential limitations, you may only be able to capture spend where purchasers have specifically used such terms as ‘fair’ and ‘trade’, ‘fairtrade’ or ‘fairly’ and ‘traded’ in their requisitions, and so items where buyers have used catalogue item numbers will not be reflected in the data.

These considerations will be acknowledged in the report

The last three years have seen the organisation’s purchasing reduced considerably due to staff working from home and closure of offices. Regarding Fair Trade products the most likely contracts where these products would have been purchased would be in the catering contract, the supplier being Albacore and the Scottish Government stationery contract with Lyreco.

For 2022/2023 the usage for these contracts is very small due to the operating environment. Attached is an information sheet containing the information we have on the fair trade purchasing, which relates to sugar sticks.

For your information attached is a copy of our Procurement Policy. Page 3 refers to “suppliers specify Fair and Ethically Trade Products, if applicable”.

Information Sheet (224 KB)

Procurement Policy (234 KB)