Provision of Assessment and Certification Services to the QMS Whole Chain Assurance Programme

QMS seeks to appoint a third party Certification Body (CB) contractor, to provide independent assessment and certification services to its whole chain assurance programme. The programme provides reassurance to consumers that meat has been produced under stringent standards of food safety, animal welfare, environmental protection and good farming practice. The QMS Assurance Scheme Standards (available here www.qmscotland.co.uk/whole-chain-assurance) must be strictly and consistently enforced and certified by an independent CB contractor. The scope of this contract includes all relevant activities related to the assessment and certification of the schemes including assessment of any new and existing assurance scheme members and continuous development of the six quality assurance schemes within the whole chain assurance programme, all as more specifically set out in the Specification of Requirements and the Terms and Conditions of Contract. The schemes relevant for these services are: - Cattle & Sheep Assurance Scheme - Pigs Assurance Scheme - Feeds Assurance Scheme - Haulage Assurance Scheme - Auction Market and Collection Centres Assurance Scheme - Processor Assurance Scheme The contract will not be split into lots for reasons of operational and management efficiency. The contract is for a period of 5 years commencing 1 April 2022 and has the ability to break after year 3 and year 4. Additional information: Economic operators may be excluded from this competition if they are in any one of the situations referred to in regulation 58 (1) of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015