Procurement Scotland, the new system of buying goods and services launched by Scotland's government on 6 March, is getting a wary welcome from Scottish recruiters.

Scottish finance minister John Swinney has challenged the country's small-and-medium sized enter- prises to prove they can provide better services than competitors from beyond the border in order to win work through Procurement Scotland.

However, recruiters speaking to Recruiter said that the depersonalised system may put up more hurdles than they remove.

Wendy McDougall, managing director of Glasgow-based IT recruiter 9-20 Recruitment, praised many of the intentions behind Procurement Scotland — in particular, to create a system that rewards the best possible suppliers with government contracts for work.

However, she was unhappy that, among other points, the programme guidelines have removed the opportunity to work directly with line managers. "Recruiters are good at building relationships, and they've stripped that out," McDougall told Recruiter.

Graham Caswell, chief executive of multi-sector recruiter Search Consultancy, told Recruiter that he believed the primary focus of any such government initiative would be to further drive down margins. When bidding for public sector work, he said, "you can do an 80- to 90-page document with 10 copies, and in the meetings I've been in, the point they're most interested in is the cost".

He added: "If people buy on value, we're absolutely happy to do business with them."

Scottish public sector spending on goods and services is around £8bn a year.