"Imagine that Scotland had an economic development tool with 16 times the budgetary power of Scottish Enterprise's £500 million a year. Pie in the sky? No, actually the Scottish Executive does have such a tool. It is called the procurement budget - the £8 billion a year that public bodies spend on buying goods and services from the private sector."
Peter Jones, The Scotsman, 6th October 2006
The Scottish Executive is committed to ensuring that, "wherever possible and, consistent with the need to secure value for money, suitably qualified SMEs have the opportunity to compete for public sector business."
Are they acheiving this ? Peter Jones of the Scotsman raises some interesting questions..
Read the full story at The Scotsman and add your comments here, or contact Peter direct
