Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
The Scottish Government (SG) looks as if they could be preparing to “relaunch” their proposed gigabit broadband roll-out procurement for Fife, Perth and Kinross during September 2025. This might take a second stab at trying to find a supplier that can help upgrade the remaining set of hardest-to-reach premises.
Just to recap. The move comes after the SG stopped their existing tender a couple of weeks ago (here), which aimed to find a supplier to deliver on their proposed £43m (state aid) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out scheme for Fife, Perth and Kinross (Lot 4 – Scotland). This had been expected to help expand full fibre (FTTP) connectivity to an estimated 28,441 premises in hard-to-reach rural areas (i.e. premises that weren’t due to benefit from their existing R100 contract with Openreach)
However, the SG stopped this effort after discovering that “there had been a significant increase in the number of premises which have been delivered to or are now included in commercial build plans” across the same area, which is a nice problem to have. But it also meant that the foundation for the original procurement was now incorrect.
A spokesperson for the SG told ISPreview at the time: “In agreement with the UK Government, we have therefore discontinued the procurement for Fife, Perth and Kinross in its current form and will engage with the supplier market to determine interest in bidding for a revised procurement in this area. The outcome of these discussions will inform next steps.”
The latest development is that the SG has today issued a new Prior Information Notice (PIN) for the same area and programme, which is intended to judge market (supplier) interested in launching a revised procurement for the area during September 2025.
Extract from the Prior Information Notice
Working with [Building Digital UK], the Scottish Government is carrying out Soft Market Testing in June 2025 and Pre-procurement Market Engagement in mid/late July 2025 to establish whether a procurement will attract market interest in the Fife, Perth & Kinross area and result in compliant bids.
BDUK and the Scottish Government are also offering, as part of this engagement, 30-minute one-to-one Teams sessions with suppliers. These sessions will be held on either the 27th or the 30th June 2025 via MS Teams.
The new procurement, assuming it does re-launch in September (this is currently still very tentative), will no doubt focus on a smaller intervention area than the original one. But it remains subject to the Scottish Government and BDUK “being confident that there is the market interest in each procurement to lead to successful contract award“.
In our earlier report we noted how several network operators had a presence in the area, including Openreach, Virgin Media (inc. nexfibre), Hyperoptic, Netomnia, GoFibre, CityFibre and Highland Broadband. But we also highlighted how most of those players lacked the funding or interest to take on the original contract, which is a calculation that may change depending upon the details of the SG’s re-launch.