Lobbying Register Solution

Description

The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) is carrying out market research to identify providers who may be capable of delivering, implementing and supporting an online registration and information database solution, and understand if this can be met through commercial off the shelf software (COTS) or a developed and bespoke solution, to meet the requirements of the current Lobbying Register (the “register”), as set out in the Lobbying Scotland Act 2016. Lot 1: Since March 2018, “regulated lobbying” must be recorded in a Lobbying Register. The types of lobbying which are regulated are set out in the Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016. The Act places a statutory duty on eligible organisations (currently over 1,300) to register as ‘lobbyists’ and provide information returns for communications made face-to-face with any MSP, a member of the Scottish Government (Cabinet Secretaries and Scottish Law Officers), a junior Scottish Minister, a Scottish Government Special Adviser, or the Scottish Government’s Permanent Secretary. This type of lobbying is ‘regulated’ lobbying, and defined by the Act. The information provided is assessed and published by the Scottish Parliament’s Lobbying Register Team (“LRT”), who administer the register. Published details are available to anyone, free of charge, at the dedicated site of www.lobbying.scot The Parliament has a legal duty to monitor compliance, and the system also requires administration tools to assist the LRT with a number of daily tasks, related to: - communications made with registered organisations; the management and tracking of the flow of information submitted for registration purposes and information returns. - key reporting and messaging related to organisational compliance with statutory deadlines. Other key considerations of the solution include: - provide a facility for registration by lobbyists and interrogation of the register by the public - allow lobbyists to register and submit returns directly - be browser-based, and accessible from any location without being reliant on specific software installed on a client device - a cloud based, hosted solution - flexible to accommodate for future requirements arising under the legislation