Rules and ethics
Edinburgh web design agencies and Scottish procurement rules
Choosing a web design agency in Edinburgh means meeting Public Contracts Scotland rules, framework agreements and financial checks before any public sector bid.
What to take away
- A web design agency in Edinburgh wins public sector website work through Public Contracts Scotland, not through cold pitching to councils and quangos.
- Every Scottish public tender routes questions through a single point of enquiry, so answers bind all bidders equally.
- Framework agreements let an agency skip full competition per contract, but only after passing the original tender.
- Financial checks look at filed accounts, credit standing and tax compliance, and they are applied before technical scores matter.
- An evidence pack of policies, references and accreditations saves weeks when a notice appears.
How Scottish public sector website work is advertised and awarded
Scottish public bodies must advertise most contracts above a threshold on Public Contracts Scotland. Under the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 that threshold is £50,000 for goods and services and £2,000,000 for works. Below that threshold they still tend to use the same portal, because it gives them an audit trail.
Above the UK-wide thresholds, currently about £139,000 for central government and £214,000 for councils and other sub-central bodies, the notice must also go to Find a Tender, the UK e-notification service.
Scottish tender award stages
- Contract advertised on Public Contracts Scotland
- Bidders submit selection questionnaire
- Shortlisted firms write technical response
- Shortlisted firms often give presentation
- Price and quality weighted as published
- Award published with winning value
For an Edinburgh web design agency, the practical effect is simple: if a contract is not on the portal, assume it is either very small or not yet live.
Edinburgh-based web design agencies include Whitespace, Storm ID, Found, Blonde, Freight and Digital Six. Check each agency's current case studies before you shortlist.
The award process normally runs in stages. Bidders submit a selection questionnaire covering financial standing, insurance and policy compliance. Shortlisted firms then write a technical response and often give a presentation. Price and quality are weighted, and the weighting is published in the notice.
Procurement policy in the UK now leans on national interest tests, including security and resilience of suppliers, which affects how public bodies assess who they buy from. That framing sits behind much of the guidance public buyers follow when scoring bids (Procurement in the national interest - GOV.UK).
Website projects rarely stand alone. A council might bundle design, hosting, accessibility remediation and content migration into one lot, or split them across lots to attract smaller suppliers. Read the lot structure before deciding whether to bid alone or with a partner.
Awards are published with the winning value and the losing bidders' names in most cases. That record is useful intelligence. It tells you who is winning in Edinburgh, at what price, and how often incumbents are displaced.
The same discipline applies to private work. The what to verify at every gate checklist sets out the buyer-side tests used on private and public projects in England, and it is worth reading from the other side of the table.
Public Contracts Scotland and the single point of enquiry
Public Contracts Scotland is the national advertising portal. It carries contract notices, prior information notices, award notices and the buyer's tender documents. Registration is free, and agencies can set alerts by category, region and value.
Single point of enquiry rules
- All communication goes through one nominated contact
- Never ring the communications team directly
- Never email revised price to an individual
- Submit clarifications before the deadline
- Answers circulated to every bidder
- Late submissions rejected automatically
The single point of enquiry is the rule that all communication during a live tender goes through one nominated contact, usually a procurement officer rather than the service manager who wants the website. Questions and answers are circulated to every bidder, sometimes anonymised, so nobody gains an advantage.
This changes how an agency should behave. Never ring the communications team directly about a live tender. Never send a revised price by email to an individual. If you spot an ambiguity, submit it as a clarification before the deadline, because the answer becomes part of the contract terms.
Clarification deadlines usually fall several days before the submission deadline. Miss it and you bid on your own assumptions. That is how agencies lose contracts they could have won.
Late submissions are rejected automatically. The portal timestamps everything, and extensions are rare and usually published to all bidders at once.
Framework agreements and what they mean for an Edinburgh agency
A framework agreement is a pre-competed arrangement. A central purchasing body, or a lead authority, runs one tender and appoints several suppliers. Public bodies then call off work from the framework, often with a mini competition between the appointed firms.
Framework membership trade-offs
Getting on framework
- Bid effort
- Substantial bid
- Method statements
- Detailed required
- Presentation
- Often live
- Work access
- Not guaranteed
- Ongoing cost
- Annual levies
Once on framework
- Bid effort
- No full re-run
- Method statements
- Reusable
- Presentation
- Not usually
- Work access
- Invited to quote
- Ongoing cost
- Reporting duties
For an Edinburgh web design agency, the trade-off is clear. Getting onto a framework takes a substantial bid, with detailed method statements and often a live presentation. Once on it, you can be invited to quote for work without a full re-run of the original process.
Frameworks relevant to website work cover digital services, design, hosting and accessibility. Some are UK-wide, some are Scotland-specific. Each has a term, commonly two to four years, with possible extension.
Named examples open to Scottish buyers:
- G-Cloud 14, run by the Crown Commercial Service, covers cloud hosting, cloud software and cloud support. Its term runs for three years from 2024, with a possible extension. Buyers call off by direct award or by further competition on the Digital Marketplace.
- Technology Services 3, also Crown Commercial Service, covers digital, network and ICT services. Its term runs to 2025 with a possible extension. Call-off is normally by further competition, with direct award available on some lots.
- Digital Specialists and Programmes supplies digital teams, outcomes and programme delivery. It runs from 2023 to 2027, and call-off is by further competition.
- In Scotland, Scotland Excel runs ICT frameworks for councils, and Scottish Procurement runs national frameworks for central government bodies.
Call-off rules vary. Some frameworks allow direct award to a chosen supplier. Others require every appointed supplier to be invited to mini-compete. Read the call-off mechanism before you invest in the bid, because it determines how much work you can realistically expect.
A worked call-off, for a council website bought through G-Cloud 14:
Call-off timeline
- Day 0the buyer issues the call-off documents to the suppliers that can meet the requirement.
- Days 1 to 5you raise clarifications with the buyer and receive the answers.
- Day 14bids close, usually two to three weeks after issue.
- Days 15 to 25evaluation, with a presentation in some cases.
- Day 30standstill begins. Scottish regulated procurements require a standstill of at least 10 days.
- Days 40 to 45award, then contract start.
Timings vary with value and complexity, so treat those days as typical rather than fixed.
There is a real cost to framework membership. Annual levies, reporting duties and service levels all apply. An agency with two designers may find the admin outweighs the pipeline.
Agency owners weighing whether to enter public work at all should read six gates from refusal line to recovery, which sets out the commercial tests a growth decision has to pass, because the same tests apply to framework bids.
Financial checks agencies must pass before bidding
Financial checks come first in most Scottish public tenders. Buyers request filed accounts, usually for the last two or three years, and may run a credit check through a commercial agency.
What they look for:
- Filed accounts for the last two or three years, as filed at Companies House.
- A credit report from Experian, Equifax or Creditsafe. The minimum score sits in the tender documents, and most buyers ask for the equivalent of a low risk band rather than a fixed number.
- A current ratio, current assets divided by current liabilities, of at least 1.0, with some buyers setting the bar at 1.2.
- Annual turnover at least equal to the contract value, and often twice the value for multi-year contracts.
- Positive net assets, or a parent company guarantee where the balance sheet is negative.
- Tax compliance across VAT, PAYE and corporation tax, with no unpaid court judgments.
- Insurance coveremployers' liability of at least £5m, public liability typically £5m to £10m, and professional indemnity typically £1m to £5m.
- Fair work practices, which Scottish buyers may weigh under the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, including payment of the real Living Wage.
Financial checks before bidding
- Accounts filed on time with Companies House
- Positive net assets or credible explanation
- Turnover proportionate to contract value
- No county court judgments above limit
- Employer's liability, professional indemnity, public liability
- VAT and PAYE records in order
- No director disqualifications or unspent convictions
Director declarations matter more than many bidders expect. Signatories confirm the accuracy of the submission, and false statements can lead to exclusion and referral. The statutory duties behind those declarations are set out in the guidance on being a company director, which is worth reading before signing anything on behalf of the business.
Group structures complicate the picture. If your agency trades through a holding company, buyers may ask for consolidated accounts and a guarantee from the parent.
Newly formed companies are not automatically excluded. Buyers can accept alternative evidence, such as a bank reference, a parent guarantee or a track record from the directors' previous firm.
Evidence pack an Edinburgh web design agency needs for tenders
An evidence pack is a folder of documents you can reuse across bids. Building it once turns a two-week scramble into a two-day task.
Build it in this order:
Build a reusable evidence pack
- Collect statutory documents and filed accounts
- Write standing policies for management and compliance
- Document data protection position and procedures
- Record accessibility practice and sample audit
- Gather three case studies with references
- Keep register of accreditations and training
- Maintain bid library of reusable answers
Standards set by the Government Digital Service shape what public buyers expect from a website, including service design, plain language and accessibility testing before launch (Government Digital Service - GOV.UK). Align your method statement with those expectations and the technical response writes itself.
Commercial records matter too. Registration, tax and reporting duties that apply to running a UK business are the same ones a buyer checks when scoring financial standing, and the Business and self-employed - GOV.UK guidance is a reasonable starting index for those obligations.
Edinburgh's market rewards specialisation. Agencies that can show Scottish public sector clients, an understanding of the single point of enquiry, and a clean financial record will keep getting invited back. Those that treat public tenders as a side activity rarely last beyond the first rejection.
