The Scottish Government

Buying Solutions Memoranda of Understanding

About Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) and Bulk Licence Agreements (BLAs)

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is an agreement between a software owner and the UK public sector, which Buying Solutions manages on its behalf. It usually contains the structure of the pricing and discount levels that a software owner is willing to offer to a Government Entity that purchases commercial software and services. This can either be directly or through a 3rd party, for the use of that Government Entity.

Some software owners operate Bulk Licence Agreements (BLAs), which may be more cost effective than purchasing individual licences. These licensing initiatives are intended to lower the cost of software purchases for commonly used software applications. BLAs consolidate the purchasing power of the UK public sector to obtain optimal pricing and/or preferred terms and conditions for widely used commercial software. These agreements provide users with lower prices while software owners get potentially higher sales volume at a lower cost due to the simplified approach to dealing with the UK public sector.

Benefits

MoUs and BLAs can provide organisations with the following benefits:

• Public sector discounts from economies of scale
• Relationships with existing resellers can be maintained
• No need for specific negotiations
• Standard terms and conditions for public sector

Who can use these Memoranda of Understanding and Bulk Licence Agreements?

In general, most public sector organisations can benefit from the terms of these agreements. Please contact Buying Solutions direct if in doubt about whether your organisation can utilise these agreements.

Current MOU and BLA Agreements

For further information on these agreements please log on the Buying Solutions site. http://www.buyingsolutions.gov.uk/mou/softwarelicence/