Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 came into force on 1 January 2005 and requires all local authorities, including Angus Council, to give access to recorded information about, amongst other things, its contracts. It is not lawful for the council to 'contract out' of its Freedom of Information obligations.

The exemptions allowed under the Act are limited and most are also subject to a test that the public interest in withholding the information is greater than the public interest in releasing it (the 'public interest test').

In so far as contract information is concerned, some of the Scottish Information Commissioner's recent decisions (see http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/ApplicationsandDecisions/Decisions/Decisions.php) have made it clear than the exemption for commercial interests (where disclosure would be likely to prejudice substantially the commercial interests of any person, subject to the public interest test) will not be readily met unless genuine and substantial commercial prejudice can be established.

This is supplementary to the EU procurement rules applying to contracts above the relevant EU contract value thresholds (currently, approximately £156k for council supplies or services contracts and £3.9m for council construction works contracts). In summary, these provide for confidentiality to be preserved for bidders' tender information during the tender process and for ongoing confidentiality for technical and trade secrets but for mandatory publication of invitation to tender and contract award information. Other information may require to be made available on request.

As such, suppliers doing business with Angus Council should expect that their names and contact details along with overall contract value information may be made publicly available shortly after contract award.

Angus Council will also pro-actively:

Intimate winning bidder and lowest price / most economically advantageous tender information to successful and unsuccessful bidders;
Provide tender de-briefing information on request to unsuccessful bidders; and
Publish contract award information to support sub-contracting opportunities.

The council makes use of the Public Contracts Scotland portal to publish its contract award notices and suppliers are referred there for that information.

The council also publishes its Contract Register, updated on a quarterly basis. This is a record of all the main contracts put in place by the council and of a value of greater than £5,000 over the contract duration. The Contracts Register is available at the following Tayside Procurement Consortium pages (see elsewhere on these Angus Council "Contracts and Tenders" pages for more information on the Tayside Procurement Consortium).

Parties using the public Contracts Register are asked to note the basis on which it is provided:

The information is provided to ensure transparency over let contracts and help keep suppliers informed of broad contract renewal dates, so they can plan ahead should they be interested in bidding for relevant opportunities.
The information is public domain and may not be re-sold or re-used for any commercial purpose.
Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the Register, the information is not guaranteed to be exhaustive or definitive so its contents should not be relied upon for any business planning or other purpose.

Further information on Freedom of Information generally is available on the council's website under its Freedom of Information pages.