APUC (Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges) Limited is the procurement centre of expertise for all of Scotland’s universities and colleges, established initially in response to the McClelland Report: ‘Review of Public Procurement in Scotland’, which made recommendations for public procurement reform.
APUC Vision
“To maximise the value of Scotland’s investment in further and higher education by working in partnership with institutions to support and enable sustainable innovation in procurement and shared service optimisation”
In responding to the challenges of recruitment reform, APUC aims to meet and exceed client expectations through delivery of five client service streams:
| Strategic Sourcing | Managing and delivering a wide ranging contracting plan in line with client institutions’ needs, informed by an account management approach, user intelligence groups and sectors’ Procurement Strategy Groups. |
| Responsible Procurement | Covering a wide scope of all relevant aspects of social, ethical, human rights and environmental (with a strong focus on addressing the climate emergency) supply chain impacts. The Responsible Procurement resources within APUC are there to both support the APUC core team in addressing these matters, but also with a strong focus on supporting all procurement staff and other stakeholders based in member institutions, and other relevant sector / cross-sector groups in maximising effectiveness in this area. |
| Development | Delivering the training and professional development support activities for the Scottish HE/FE sectors in matters relating to procurement (except procurement systems training which is delivered via the APUC eSolutions team). This includes a comprehensive face to face classroom training programme as well as a set of comprehensive eLearning packages, all tailored to the procurement community’s needs. This activity also includes the sectors’ very successful procurement manager development programme. |
| Institutional Procurement Services | Providing hands-on high value and above EU threshold procurement tender and contract support to colleges across Scotland as a shared service. This, as well as bringing additional savings, reduces risk and assures legal compliance in procurement activities across the sector. A wider service is also offered to Universities and Colleges that include solutions that provide procurement shared services embedded / operating within institutions where applicable. |
| eSolutions | Facilitating the sectors use of a wide range of systems to support procurement and related compliance processes, including the developing and delivery of bespoke systems to maximise efficiency and effectiveness of procurement resources in the sector and delivering a systems’ training programme. Managing business information to underpin benefits tracking and reporting to client institutions and the Scottish Government. Supporting use of the Public Contracts Scotland portal, Scottish Procurement Information Hub and Best Practice Indicators. |
APUC Company Values
APUC has always been a values-driven organisation. Towards the end of 2025, APUC’s staff worked as one team across a series of workshops and discussions to set out in words what APUC’s values are and what they mean to them. These are embedded in everything we do.
