The Scottish Government recently revealed the two pathfinder territories for the hub initiative through which it aims to bring together local authorities, health boards and other public bodies within a locality to procure community-based infrastructure. South East Scotland will lead the way, followed by the North of Scotland. Both have received Scottish Government funding towards the procurement and set-up costs in launching the hub programme in their areas and will be overseen by the Scottish Futures Trust.

The timescales that the pathfinder territories are working to are still uncertain. The first step will be for each to advertise in the OJEU for a private sector partner to form a local hub company and the Scottish Government had previously announced that this would happen by the end of 2008. The expectation now, however, is that this is more likely in Spring 2009.

We also have little detail at this stage of the scale of investment that the pathfinder territories are anticipating and to what extent they have a pipeline of projects (and funding) for the hub company to get to work on immediately. What is likely though is that we will see the hub companies use a variety of procurement and funding methods over time – from traditionally funded design and build projects through to lease-plus arrangements through to privately funded NPD projects.

Despite the delays and uncertainty, however, it is clear that work is going on behind the scenes to progress the hub initiative. A project delivery team has been established and is in the process of appointing external advisers. The team is actively engaged with the pathfinder territories, assisting them with scoping their schemes and pulling together the necessary documentation before going out to the market.

The first hub OJEU notice will be welcomed with a mixture of delight and relief! In the meantime we would be happy to talk to you and share some thoughts and ideas around the hub initiative, how you might approach it and how you might feed into the Scottish Government and SFT's development of the initiative.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with Rhona, Juliet, Claire or Julia if you would like to discuss the hub initiative with us.

24 November 2008

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