Our overall strategy is for procurement to
be carried out with the most relevant expertise
and in conjunction with the end-user.
Where possible, general items such as stationery and furniture are
purchased through framework arrangements with specific goods and
services purchased directly.
This mix of purchasing enables us to take advantage of economies
of scale.
The main tenet of our procurement is competition. For small-scale
requirements under £1000 usually a single quote will suffice.
Up to £50,000 we would invite at least three written quotations and
above £50,000 requires the use of formal tendering
procedures.
Where the total estimated cost of the requirement is in excess of
the European Union Public Procurement thresholds - for goods and
services generally around £150,000 - the relevant EU rules on
public procurement are followed.
For further information Further details refer to our
Public
procurement rules page.
Our Procurement team and end-user decide which suppliers to
invite to submit a quotation or tender.
Where we have to carry out formal pre-qualification, for example,
when we are applying the restricted process under EU procurement,
we will send you a pre-qualification questionnaire to complete in
order to establish whether you will be invited to tender.
Formal tendering will take one of two forms - either an open tender
process or a one-off select list process.
With open tendering all suppliers who request invitations to
tender will be entitled to participate. However, in most cases the
one-off select list approach is adopted and this involves a
two-stage process.
Stage one involves the obtaining and interpreting of general
information about potential tenderers to determine their
suitability for our requirement and for working with us.
Potential suppliers are given a pre-qualification questionnaire
(PQQ) to complete.
Stage two involves the organisations short-listed from stage one
being issued with an enquiry or invitation to tender and invited to
submit tender documents by a specific time and date.
Tendering procedures will vary in detail but nonetheless we will
try to adhere to the following:
- Avoid over-specifying a requirement
- Write specifications as far as possible in terms of output and
not input
- Invite a sufficient number of tenderers to ensure a fair
competition but giving those tenderers a reasonable chance of
winning
- Provide clear documentation
- Give all tenderers equal opportunity
All contracts above £50,000 are advertised. In addition, except
for exempted products and services, contracts exceeding the
European Procurement Directives threshold of £144,371 (for supplies
and services) and £3,611,319 (for works) are normally advertised in
the
Official Journal of the European
Union (OJEU).
Further information is also available from the following
sources:
- Our online Advertised
Contracts Database which details the contracts for which
we are currently seeking suppliers
- Our online Contract
database which details our current operational contracts
- Local and national newspapers where appropriate
- Specialist trade journals where appropriate
Contracts worth less than £50,000 do not have to be
advertised.
In these cases officers within individual directorates will
refer to frameworks, existing supplier records, directories and
information submitted from potential suppliers and will obtain
three quotations.
Your tender will be successful if it is the one that offers the
best value for money.
Under normal circumstances you will be informed of the broad
evaluation criteria used for assessing tenders with all tenders
assessed against the same criteria.
The assessment process might involve you attending an interview
where you will be given the opportunity to present your bid in
detail and questioned by a panel of officers on certain aspects of
it. Where appropriate we may ask for samples for evaluation.
After the process is completed authorisation of the contract is
required.
Contracts worth more than £150,000 require councillor
authorisation which will inevitably add time to the process but
usually we will have built this into the process.
Within the limits of commercial confidentiality we offer
unsuccessful tenderers feedback to understand the reasons why their
tender might have been unsuccessful.
Such feedback can be by letter, phone or face-to-face and will
be at the instigation of the supplier. This should be viewed as a
two-way process and our feedback viewed as constructive.
It is aimed at making unsuccessful tenderers aware of certain
weaknesses, and strengths, enabling them to better compete for
future work.
