18 Supplementary guidance
18.1 Scottish Procurement Policy Notes
SPD produces Scottish Procurement Policy Notes ( SPPNs) on an ad hoc basis on current procurement policy issues. SPPNs are circulated widely to Scottish public sector organisations and are also published on the SPD website. SPPNs supplement the policy guidance in this Handbook. Every contracting authority should ensure that it keeps up to date with and takes appropriate action in response to policy developments disseminated via SPPNs.
SPPNs can be found on the SPD website:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/policy/manual/policy-notes
18.2 Scottish Procurement Action Notes
SPD also produces Scottish Procurement Action Notes ( SPANs) on an ad hoc basis. One use of SPANs is to alert organisations to recent court decisions which do not influence procurement policy but which are nonetheless of interest to procurement professionals. SPANs are circulated widely to Scottish public sector organisations and are also published on the SPD website:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/policy/manual/SPAN
18.3 Scottish Procurement Directorate website
The SPD website has a section dedicated to procurement policy:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/Policy
18.4 Policy Forum
Membership of the Policy Forum comprises key stakeholders from each sector and representatives from each sectoral Centre of Expertise ( COE). Its purpose is to advise on and support the development of new procurement policy. It will be consulted on all major policy development issues.
Further information on the Policy Forum has been published on the SPD website:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/policy/procurepolicyforum