Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 thresholds

Closes 8 Jan 2026

Opened 16 Oct 2025

Contact

ProcurementThresholdReview@gov.scot

Overview

This consultation seeks views on amending the goods, services, works and community benefit thresholds within the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 (the Act).

When public bodies buy goods, works or services they must follow certain rules set out in law. Which rules apply to the award of a contract is determined by the value of that contract. Public procurement in Scotland can be broadly divided into three categories, based on the value of the contract:

  • Higher value contracts are regulated by The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 (the 2015 Regulations). These regulations apply financial thresholds set in the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Government Procurement (“the GPA"). Every two years these figures are recalculated to reflect changes in the value of sterling, but otherwise remain stable
  • Regulated contracts are those governed by the Act because they have a value equal to, or greater than, the thresholds in the Act
  • Unregulated contracts are contracts with a value less than the Act’s threshold

The Act also contains a threshold for community benefits. A community benefit is a contractual requirement put in place by a public body relating to:

  • training and recruitment
  • the availability of sub-contracting opportunities, or
  • which is otherwise intended to improve the economic, social or environmental wellbeing of the authority's area in a way additional to the main purpose of the contract in which the requirement is included

The Act’s thresholds have not changed since the Act was passed in 2014. This consultation seeks your views on whether these thresholds should be changed, and if so, by how much. This consutlation is exploring the option of increasing the Act’s goods, service and works thresholds as well as the option of decreasing the Act’s community benefits threshold.

We recommend that you read through or refer to the consultation paper when responding to this consultation.

Consultation questions preview

The consultation questions are included here for your reference. Please click 'Begin consultation' at the bottom of this page to proceed.

Question 1: Which is your preferred option in relation to the Act’s goods, services and works thresholds?

  1. Option 1: Threshold values remain unchanged, e.g. £50,000 for goods and services and £2 million for works.
  2. Option 2: Inflation-linked threshold values, e.g. £70,000 for goods and services and £2,800,000 for works with these thresholds being revised every two years to reflect inflation.
  3. Option 3: A bigger increase, e.g. £100,000 for goods and services and £4 million for works. Please note that under this option these thresholds will not be amended every two years to reflect inflation.
  4. None of the above

Question 2: What are the reason(s) for your answer to question one?

Question 3: Which is your preferred option in relation amending the community benefit threshold?

  1. Option A: Threshold values remain unchanged at £4 million
  2. Option B: Threshold value is reduced to £3 million
  3. Option C: Threshold value is reduced to £2 million
  4. Option D: Threshold value is reduced to £1 million
  5. None of the above

Question 4: Optional. What are the reason(s) for your answer to question 3?

Question 5: Optional. Is there anything else you want to tell us about the goods, services, works or community benefit thresholds of the 2014 Act?

Useful information about responding to this consultation

As you complete your response, each page will provide the option to 'Save and come back later' at the bottom. This means you can save your progress and return to the consultation at any time before it closes. If you don't use this feature and leave the consultation midway through, your response will be lost.

Once you have submitted your response, you can enter your email address to get a pdf copy of your answers sent to you.

On the 'About You' page at the end of this consultation, organisations will have the opportunity to tell us more about their work and/or how their response was informed.

After the consultation has closed there will be a few months delay before any responses are published. This is because we must check any responses to be published abide by our Terms of Use.

All relevant submitted responses will be analysed. This may be carried out by third party organisations who Scottish Government, its executive agencies or non-ministerial offices, contract to do this work. Such data sharing will be governed by appropriate contractual arrangements to keep your data secure.

An analysis report will usually be published some months after the consultation has closed. This report will summarise the findings based on all responses submitted. It will be published on the Scottish Government website and you may be notified about it if you choose to share your email address with us.

You can also join our consultation mailing list where we regularly list newly published analysis reports (as well as new consultations).

Give us your views

Begin consultation

Interests

  • Business, Industry and Innovation
  • Main hub