Contract Administrator

Responsible for day-to-day contract administration and record-keeping.

Key administrative responsibilities include:

• Maintaining the contract file
• Recording performance, meetings, and decisions
• Tracking key dates and obligations
• Administering variations and extensions
• Supporting governance and audit requirements

Contract Owner

Accountable for:

• Approving key administrative outputs (e.g. variations, extensions)
• Ensuring appropriate administrative controls are in place

For medium and high-risk contracts (Routes 2 and 3), a complete contract file should be maintained.

• Signed contract and schedules
• Procurement documentation (award decision, approvals)
• Contract variations and extensions
• Performance reports and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Governance meeting minutes
• Risk and issue logs
• Financial records and invoices
• Correspondence relating to material decisions

Files must be:

• Stored in approved systems
• Version controlled
• Accessible for FOI requests

Upon contract award, the following administrative actions must be completed:

• Confirm contract start and end dates
• Record key contractual milestones and review points
• Set up meeting schedules
• Establish reporting templates
• Confirm named contacts for both parties
• Create contract risk and issue logs
• Ensure baseline Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are documented

For all formal contract meetings:

• Issue agenda in advance
• Record attendance
• Produce written minutes
• Log actions with owners and deadlines
• Retain records in the contract file

The contract administrator must:

• Collect performance reports from the supplier
• Record Key Performance Indicator (KPI) results against contractual requirements
• Maintain a performance log
• Highlight persistent under-performance for escalation
• Retain evidence supporting performance assessments

Risk Register

• Maintain a contract-specific risk register
• Record risk description, impact, likelihood, owner, and mitigation
• Update regularly and retain version history

Issue Log

• Record all material issues
• Track actions and resolution dates

Escalate unresolved or high-impact issues

More guidance on Risk Management can be found in Additional Resources

All changes must be administered formally.

The administrator must:

• Record all variation requests
• Ensure impact assessments are documented
• Confirm approvals in line with delegated authority
• Update contract documentation and registers
• Retain signed variation documentation

No informal or retrospective changes should be permitted.

For detailed guidance, please refer to the Variation/Extension/Amendments station.

Administrative controls must include:

• Recording contract values and limits
• Monitoring cumulative spend
• Checking invoices against contract terms
• Retaining evidence of approvals and payments
• Flagging potential overspend or irregularities

For high-risk contracts, financial tracking should be updated regularly.

Contract administration should support:

• Freedom of Information obligations
• Audit and assurance requirements
• Data protection and information governance standards

Records must be:

• Accurate
• Complete
• Timely
• Retrievable

The administrator should:

• Track contract end dates and notice periods
• Flag upcoming expiry or extension points early
• Ensure approvals are obtained before extensions
• Retain decisions and supporting rationale

For detailed guidance, please refer to the Variation/Extension/Amendments station.

At contract end, the administrator must:

• Confirm completion of contractual obligations
• Ensure final payments are validated
• Retain handover and exit documentation
• Close and archive the contract file

For detailed guidance, please refer to the Dispute Resolution / Termination / Contract Exit station.

Medium and high-risk (Route 2 and 3) contracts require:

• More frequent administrative activity
• Greater documentation and control
• Increased workload

These factors should be reflected in resource planning and workload models.

For Care & Support Services please also read Additional Guidance when Reviewing a Care and Support Service.

In some areas Contract Management Officers routinely attend the Care Inspectorate’s post-inspection feedback sessions with suppliers.

Contracts are awarded following a thorough evaluation process which looks at some standard elements. Your Organisation should perform periodic supplier ‘health checks' should be undertaken throughout the life of the contract to ensure standards are maintained. These checks could include:

• Financial Status,
• CIS Registration,
• Business Probity,
• Conviction of Criminal Offences,
• Compliance with Legislation and Regulatory Provisions (including Equality),
• Corporate Social Responsibility:
• Sustainable Procurement and Environmental Practices
• Health & Safety
• Insurances
• Care Inspectorate Inspection reports and records.

The frequency of the checks depends on  the type of contract, e.g. strategic and bottleneck contracts will be checked more frequently than collaborative and routine contracts.

Understand Contract Terms & Conditions

The purpose of Contract and Supplier Management is to ensure suppliers meet their contractual obligations and the contract requirements are successfully delivered. 

It is essential that anyone engaged in managing suppliers reads and fully understands the contract's terms and conditions, otherwise they will be at a permanent disadvantage should any issues arise.

Your Organisation’s Contract Manager/Contract Management Officer should engage early in the process, from the Develop Strategy stage,  and participate in the development of terms and conditions.

The full Balanced Scorecard can be used for managing and monitoring contract and supplier performance.  A template for you to use can be found at the bottom of the page.

The scorecard can be issued to multiple users of the contract and responses compiled to use as a discussion point during the supplier review meetings.

The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be edited to suit the commodity/service area.

KPIs provide a way to measure the four quadrants of the balanced scorecard (Quality, Cost, Sustainability and Service).  KPIs help organisations understand how well they and/or their suppliers are performing against their strategic goals and objectives. 

You must ensure effective contract management so that the practice of blacklisting does not occur in public contracts.

MI is used to monitor the supplier's or contract's performance and ensures management have the information to make effective strategic and operational decisions.

You must clearly define your MI requirements and communicate these to your supplier(s).

Your MI reporting arrangements must be fair and proportionate and not duplicate information already provided.

Your MI reporting approach should minimise demands on suppliers for information about the delivery of the goods/services.

You can undertake a risk assessment to help decide what the frequency and level of reporting should be. This may change/increase in certain circumstances, for example if a complaint is made about the service/delivery.

The reporting arrangements can be included in your specification and/or in the terms and conditions of the contract.

For some specific services, you should avoid duplicating information which is collected by/available from regulatory bodies. This can be achieved through the development of Memoranda of Understanding and regular discussions between the organisation and the regulatory bodies.

Sustainable Procurement outcomes, for example Fair Work Practices, must be an integral element of the contract and supplier management process. They should be included as a standard agenda item at supplier review meetings and considered alongside all other contract management matters.

It is important to ensure monitoring includes the use of any agency or sub-contractor workers throughout the duration of the contract.  This will include any new members joining the workforce engaged on the contract’s delivery.

Evidence should be sought from suppliers to demonstrate compliance with agreed contract conditions. This includes what the main contractor is doing to ensure Sustainable Procurement outcomes, such as Fair Work First commitments, down the supply chain to subcontractors and to agency workers. Evidence which should be sough can include reviewing recruitment information which could include pay policy and the terms and conditions for workers involved in the delivery of the contract.

Where there are material concerns regarding a supplier’s compliance with any sustainable procurement commitments or the contractual obligations it has made, an Organisation could consider whether to undertake general sustainability audit of the contract.

You should detail what will happen if the contract is not being delivered or the agreed quality standards are not being met.

Performance issues should be addressed immediately, and escalated within the supplier organisation if not resolved promptly.

Contract Managers/Contract Management Officers should ensure the escalation process is clearly defined, understood and communicated to all stakeholders and end users.

If you find that the supplier is not delivering the agreed level of service:

• you should raise this with them immediately. For speed this can be done by telephone but should be followed up in writing.
• Ask your supplier for an action plan to ensure that the required levels of service re-commences in a short time frame.
• If the issue is major it may also be necessary to hold a face-to-face meeting with the supplier.
• All discussions/meetings etc. should be minuted to ensure an audit trail exists.
• If resolution of the issue is not completed within the timescales agreed then the issue should be escalated (see below) and your procurement contact notified of the problem.  When escalated with the supplier, and an early face-to-face meeting should be arranged.  Here actions and timescale to remedy the situation should be agreed and implemented.
• The recovery actions should be monitored on a regular basis to ensure that the agreed recovery / resolution dates do not slip.
• All discussions/agreements should be noted in writing.

There are specific contract terms and conditions that can be used appropriately to help drive and maintain contract compliance/performance. 

You should incorporate these into the Terms and Conditions (T & Cs) of contract. You should understand the specific contract T & C’s, and that any incentives and sanctions considered are appropriate and legally enforceable. You must seek legal advice if in doubt as to the wording, appropriateness or legality of a proposed condition.

Examples of incentives and sanctions which could be considered are listed below, but must not be applied on your own. Appropriate internal approval must be sought and received prior to implementation.

Incentives could include (subject to substantial modification):

• Contract extension options
• A longer contract opportunity could provide performance motivation
• Payment by result, e.g. by use of milestone payments (linked to defined deliverables)
• Reduced payment terms

Conditions of Contract could include:

• Retention e.g. legitimately withhold payment if deliverables are not completed (only with genuine and notified reason.  This must be compliant with previously agreed contract terms and conditions)
• Litigation
• Termination of the contract (Please note: you cannot terminate a contract with the aim of avoiding procurement rule obligations)
• Liquidated Damages (compensation amount(s) agreed to be paid when the contract was created if a specific breach occurs)

To enforce a sanction sufficient evidence is required to justify the claim or action. You must therefore have clear records e.g. agreed service levels, notice periods, reminders, communications, agreements, etc.

Any enforced incentive or sanction must comply with the agreed contract terms and conditions.

Improvement opportunities can be identified by anyone engaged with the Organisation, both internally and externally.

Many improvement ideas don’t come from management, but from employees and suppliers operationally involved in the delivery of the service.  These are the people who are regularly exposed to issues which may not be visible higher up in the Organisation.

Your Organisation should seek feedback and work to develop a culture where everyone  is encouraged to look for and suggest operational improvements.  To do so the Organisation must show that all suggestions will be considered.

Demand Management can be defined as:

“the alignment of a business’ consumption with its business requirements”

It applies to all goods and services where internal demand and consumption can be influenced to reduce costs.

Demand Management is a key aspect of aligning external resources to meet our requirements. People often think demand management is stopping people spending money. However there are a number of other ways to look at demand management without completely preventing spend.  These can still provide notable savings and have a less drastic impact on the business.

Demand often comes from internal practice and processes rather than real need. As the approach is about addressing change ‘in’ an organisation the starting point will be the culture, policy and behaviours of that organisation. The organisation can also participate by:

• sharing best practice
• benchmarking behaviour
• policy guidance
• peer review

Demand management can occur at different points in the procurement process.  For example:

• from initial purchase  - making sure that software licences are purchased for the correct number of users at a single point in time or
• where costs are reoccurring as an ongoing activity -  in a category where spend is ongoing and regular, such as stationery or postal services.

Demand Management, including behaviour change, represents a significant and untapped opportunity.

In the short term, this is about changing expectations; in the medium term about changing participation; and in the long term about reducing need.

There are 3 main principles of demand management:

1. Each business unit should have exactly what it needs in order to deliver its business objectives
2. Any resources consumed above this level represents a waste to the organisation
3. There may be many and very different ways of meeting a user need, with each way representing a different level of resource to achieve the same outcome

The three strategies listed below could be independently or jointly applied.

There are a number of benefits to an effective Demand Management strategy.  Many are driven by change in the organisation’s culture and outlook, and to how goods and services are specified and requested.

When robustly implemented across all goods and services, Demand Management drives public sector organisations to make the most efficient and effective use of procured external resources to meet the operational requirements.

The Demand Management process challenges the norms, standards, customs and practices of an organisation to a degree not usually found in other processes.

When used as a priming process for Strategic Sourcing, Demand Management can establish organisation requirements to be sourced to a very specific level.  This can avoid the development of a sourcing strategy that meets over-specified operational requirements.

As a routine part of an organisation operation Demand Management can ensure the greatest possible levels of resource are directed at front line services in the public sector.

You should consider forecasting demand  fluctuation management initially at the Shaping the Requirement Stage.  These should be subsequently monitored and managed throughout the lifetime of the contract. Failure to do so could result in:

• Excess material purchases and subsequent material write off/waste disposal costs
• material shortages resulting in additional recovery costs and/or service breakdown
• excess, inadequate or inappropriately positioned resource
• reputational damage as a result of service breakdown
• detrimental impact on the end user

You can manage your costs better, and have help your suppliers have the correct levels of resources in place, by using effective demand management forecasting. Also give the supply base the opportunity to manage their costs by positioning resource and material in line with demand.

Demand forecasting should be based on considerations such as:

• Historical consumption
• Supplier lead times
• Market forces
• Service criticality
• Key stakeholder input
• Purchase cost
• Information from other buying organisations, trade bodies and business support organisations e.g. Federation of Small Businesses and Chambers of Commerce etc.

You should try to reduce future demand and costs by using strategies such as:

• fully or partially transition to recycled goods instead of buying new
• reduce transactional cost by improving your purchase to pay system
• supplier(s) reducing mutual cost through innovation.  This should have been previously written into the contract / agreement with the supplier

To operate effectively your suppliers must understand and manage demand.  It can use this knowledge to set its resources and processes proportionately.  This will ensure their service delivery is efficient and cost effective.

By understanding your historical demand you can work with your suppliers to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

To forecast future demand you must consider a combination of:

• historical demand,
• market forces and
• the Organisation business plan/strategic direction.

Forecasting will never be 100% accurate However these elements should provide enough information to develop forecasts which are accurate enough to accommodate demand fluctuations. 

You should ensure the supplier stays in regular contact with all key stakeholders (including other suppliers).  This ensures that all parties are aware of the supply/demand position, especially during periods of fluctuation.

A key element of Contract and Supplier Management is the proactive identification and management of risk. More information can be found in Risk Management.

Fraud Prevention, Detection, Monitoring and Handling

More guidance on fraud is provided on the Scottish Government Website.

Weak links between the finance, commercial, and contract management functions provides an opportunity for fraud and/or overbilling.  This could be as a result of error and inefficiency or by deliberate intent.

Better scrutiny of payments, and a sound understanding of the contract, will quickly identify both overbilling and fraudulent activity, and allow the appropriate action to be taken.  You should not rely on your supplier to interpret the contract which could then result in billing errors.

Contracts are awarded following a thorough evaluation process which looks at some standard elements. Your Organisation’s Contract Managers/Contract Management Officers should perform periodic supplier ‘health checks’.  They should undertake these checks throughout the life of the contract to ensure standards  are maintained. These checks could include:

• Financial Status,
• CIS Registration,
• Business Probity,
• Conviction of Criminal Offences,
• Compliance with Legislation and Regulatory Provisions (including Equality),
• Corporate Social Responsibility:
• Sustainable Procurement and Environmental Practices
• Health & Safety and
• Insurances.

The frequency of the checks depends on the type of contract, e.g. strategic and bottleneck contracts will be checked more frequently than collaborative and routine contracts.

Contract management activities must include sufficient checks to ensure suppliers are meeting their Data Protection Legislation obligations as the Processor. These checks may include audits undertaken by the controller or a third party auditor.

If obligations are not being met, organisations should take urgent remedial action with the supplier to address issues and risks.

More detailed information can be found in Additional Resources.

Performance Review Meetings provide both your Organisation and the supplier with an opportunity to:

• focus on end to end performance,
• identify issues and opportunities and
• put the appropriate action plans in place.

The Performance Review Meeting standard agenda template can be completed by both your Organisation and the supplier in advance of the meeting.  This will provide a structure to the meeting.

You should hold at least one review annually for suppliers identified under the segmentation process as requiring ‘medium level’ supplier management.  Hold two review meetings for ‘high level’ suppliers.

A Review Meeting Template is available here, and a meeting agenda example is laid out below:

• You decide which spend category(s) you wish to perform the benchmarking exercise for.

• Complete a spend analysis on what you have purchased in that area for at least the last 12 months (by line item).

• Sort the data from the highest to lowest spend and then highlight the top 80 percent of the spend. This will normally be no more than 20 percent of the number of line items and should capture the majority of your spend.

You now have a manageable amount of data to go out into the market place with.

This will not cover every aspect of the potential scope of supply.  You may need to add items such as bottle-neck and specialised items. The aim is to gain an estimation of the market rates.

You should inform your existing supplier that you are planning to perform a benchmarking exercise before you go out to the market place.

Having selected the items you want to benchmark, you can now approach the market to understand the current costs.

Benchmarking is generally an informal process.  The Management Information Hub is a good source of information, as is the internet in general. You can also contact a number of suppliers directly.

It is important to ensure that the recipients of any requests understand it is a benchmarking exercise.  It is not a business opportunity. The request should be simple enough for the suppliers to provide information without having to spend a great deal of time doing so.

You can now compare the results of your benchmarking exercise.  For example, enter all costs into a spreadsheet to determine the price difference between your existing supplier and the  market rates. You can now determine where the incumbent supplier sits against the best, worst and average market rates.

If you are happy with where the incumbent supplier’s pricing fits in comparison to market rates, this shows the supplier is competitive and no further action need be taken.

If you are not happy then invite your supplier to a meeting.  Give them the opportunity to explain why they are not competitive against the current market rates.  You must not divulge the competitors’ names or pricing information.

If the supplier is willing to accept their prices are not in line with market rates then this will be a cost reduction for you. If however, the supplier is unwilling to negotiate a reduction, initiate your escalation process and include as an agenda item at the next Review Meeting.

To succeed, build on small success: when a pattern of small successes has been achieved, proposing a more ambitious CSM plan becomes less daunting.  This is because you have proven results to refer to.

Instead of leaping into the unknown, it becomes the expansion of an already successful process. Initial small successes are a recognised option to create awareness and buy-in for the larger initiative.  Small projects are likely to be the best way to gain the support necessary for broader, organisation-wide embedded CSM model adoption.

The selection of small project(s) is important.  It should be contracts or services not in crisis and which have scope for improvement. It is even better if it is a contract or service where stakeholders have voiced concerns or expressed a desire to seek improvements.

Once the contract/service has been agreed, a small cross-functional team should be created under a nominated contract manager who will own and manage the small project.

As laid out in more detail throughout the CSM guidance, the nominated cross- functional team should:

• Engage with the nominated supplier and have them create a reciprocal team
• Ensure clarity of roles and responsibilities within both the supplier and the buyer Organisation
• Agree desired outcomes, such as:
  • leveraging client and supplier expertise to drive cost and efficiency gains
  • improved Management Information (M.I.)
  • agreed KPIs and a formalised system of managing and monitoring supplier performance against the contract
  • identification of innovation / opportunities (within scope, not material change)
  • aggressive, but realistic timescales to ensure  focus is maintained and commitments are delivered

Once the desired outcomes are agreed, your nominated contract manager should ensure maintained focus within both organisations until they have been achieved and delivered. The results should be used to demonstrate the untapped potential open to a focused CSM approach.

The Business Case Template, found at the bottom of this page contains some ideas you may wish to include and should help lay out the business case. Your Organisation may have a standard template to use.

Managing the supplier contractual relationship requires a discrete set of responsibilities and activities.  As a result this should be the responsibility of a nominated member of staff. An organisation should consider how to ensure that:

• roles and responsibilities are clear
• the relationship is championed at senior levels in the Organisation and supplier organisations
• information sharing is encouraged
• concerns about relationships, from either party, can be discussed frankly
• the relationship allows for long-term strategic issues as well as day-to-day delivery issues to be considered

These considerations should be built into the commodity/service specification and/or the terms and conditions of the contract.

Your Contract Manager should be engaged early in the process. This will ensure they engage early with stakeholders and determine the appropriate contract service level requirements and Key Performance Indicators. Service level and KPI requirements should have been included in the tender documentation.

Please go to the Roles and Responsibilities station for more information.

Determining the resource required to manage the contract portfolio/supplier base is not an exact science. Very often it is subjective.

Any organisation planning to transition Contract and Supplier Management responsibilities to an embedded CSM team, must estimate the resource required. You should invest time too realistically and pragmatically plan required resources.

Some resource planning options are laid out below.

Estimating Work Required

Resource planning for a new CSM team often depends upon the judgement of an experienced manager.  You should provide enough information for an experienced manager to make an initial estimation of the extent of work required i.e. to manage the volume of Leverage, Routine, Strategic and Bottleneck suppliers.

A decision may be made to start with a small selection of critical and/or problematic suppliers.  Then you may gradually incorporate more contracts/suppliers with additional resource coming on board as appropriate.

The Resource Planning Tool, found at the bottom of this page, is taken from a particular Scottish public sector organisation’s successful proposal to transition from a traditional ‘let & forget’ model to a CSM model (and is indicative only). For the avoidance of doubt, this organisation absorbed the workload into the existing headcount by reallocating/re-prioritising responsibilities and eliminating non-value add activity. 

Segmentation

Quantification / segmentation is the most accurate methodology of estimating the resource required to manage the contract / supplier portfolio. Applying this methodology allows you to allocate limited resources where they are most needed and helps target best value improvements.  It is however, still an ‘estimation’ as many factors can affect the resource requirements, such as:

• organisational / process maturity
• employee capability
• supplier performance / capability / flexibility

Please refer to the Segmentation station for guidance

For Care and Support Services processes must not duplicate those of the Care Inspectorate.

The care manager is the role which has overall responsibility for ensuring the care and support for an individual is achieving the desired outcomes.

The Contract Award Notice is a public announcement of the public procurement exercise outcome.

The publication of a Contract Award Notice is mandatory for ALL regulated procurement exercises i.e. those where the estimated value is £50k or over (excluding VAT).

The Contract Award Notice must be despatched no later than 30 calendar days after the contract or framework agreement award date.  This also applies when a mini competition has been held for a Framework Agreement and the value is £50k or more for goods and services.

Contract Award Notice(s) must be published on the Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) portal. Contract Award Notices published via PCS will contain all of the mandatory information required.

For Dynamic Purchasing Systems, Contract Award Notices do not need to be published for each and every award.  These can be grouped together and published on a quarterly basis within 30 calendar days of quarter end.

The Contract Award Notice should not include any information which would:

• impede law enforcement or otherwise be contrary to the public interest;
• prejudice the commercial interests of any person; or
• prejudice fair competition between bidders.

When running a procurement exercise, there may be circumstances where you wish to award some lots and not others.

For example:

• Delaying a contract award on a specific lot because of a delay to the standstill period but still awarding the other lots in the procurement exercise.
• There are no compliant bids on a specific lot and an alternative exercise may be required for this lot but the bids on the other lots are compliant and can still be awarded.

To support this, in Public Contracts Scotland (PCS), you have the capability to award selected lots through separate award notices.

The process in PCS is:

1. Select your notice and click on “award”
2. The page will be displayed with all lots (if any). If there are no lots, the award process stays the same
3. You will need to deselect lots you don’t want to award and then click  “award”.

The Public Contract Scotland (PCS) Contracts Register module provides the facility for buying organisations to operate a private register of all contracts they have in place and a public register of these contracts to meet the obligations of Section 35 of the Procurement Reform Act (Scotland) 2014.

When you publish a PCS award notice an entry is automatically made in your contracts register. Your organisation will need to make the decision whether to make the contracts register publicly viewable or not.

PLEASE NOTE:  if you do not use PCS for producing a contract register, you must still produce a publicly available one.

The PCS contracts register will pull through the contract value from your contract award notice. You should always be as open and transparent as possible when completing this field. This field can be manually amended but all relevant amendments have to be manually duplicated in the Scottish Procurement Information Hub (there is no integration between the two systems for manual amendments).

Even if you withhold the contract value from a contract award notice, this does not provide an exemption from the Freedom Of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). To withhold under FOISA, the information would have to, or be likely to cause substantial prejudice.  Also the public interest in withholding the information would have to outweigh the public interest in its release.

Detailed contracts register user guidance can be found in PCS.

Focuses on social and environmental impact rather than cost.

Life cycle impacts help the user identify and assess impacts. For example, it may help to focus attention on the disposal phase before the procurement is carried out. This would allow your organisation to build end-of-life management requirements into its performance clauses for successful contractors and its own internal management procedures

Every product and service has a ‘life cycle’ or number of stages it goes through from:

• the extraction and sourcing of raw materials, such as mining
• to the transportation of sub-assemblies and parts, often through a global supply chain
• to the use of products or works
• to the delivery of services
• to the re-use, recycling, remanufacture and
• to the final disposal of materials.

Tender evaluation can only take place once the deadline for tender submissions has passed. The time taken to evaluate the returned submissions will vary from project to project.  This will depend on the complexity and the number of responses received. You should aim to provide approximate timescales for this stage as part of the Invitation to Tender (ITT) document.

An evaluation panel of at least two people should be established. The panel should consist of individuals with the technical ability to evaluate tenders. This may or may not include the buyer. Ideally the panel membership will be consistent throughout the entire process including presentations and site visits.

The evaluation panel should be able to withstand any scrutiny. It is the responsibility of the Organisation to ensure that no member has a conflict of interest which would prevent them from making a fair and objective tender assessment or which might give rise to accusations that they were unable to do so.

The panel members should read and score the quality/technical aspects of the tenders independently. They must use the pre-defined evaluation criteria and scoring system, prior to a moderation meeting taking place.

At the moderation meeting the evaluators come together to agree the final scores. The process to agree the final scores must be fully transparent and documented. You should evaluate the commercial aspects of the tenders separately, including the Price Evaluation. 

As a matter of good practice, no member of the evaluation panel should assess both the quality/technical elements and the commercial elements of the tender.

The evaluation criteria and scoring methodology should have been determined as part of the Develop Documents stage and published to tenderers in the Invitation to Tender (ITT).

The role of the buyer in the evaluation panel is to ensure an impartial and objective approach is taken to the evaluation of tenders. Some suggested ”Dos and Don’ts” are listed below:

The tender evaluation stage may be accompanied by Presentations/Site Visits.

Presentations and site visits can be included as part of the evaluation process. These offer the opportunity for the evaluation panel to gain a clearer and deeper understanding of the tenderers proposal.

The purpose and anticipated outcomes of the presentations and site visits must be made clear in the ITT documentation. This should include details of how the visits will count towards the overall evaluation of the tender submissions. Particular care must be taken to maintain transparency and equal treatment.

Details of any scoring for either the presentation or site visit must be pre-agreed and published within the relevant procurement documents.

You should ensure that the focus of these events is around the specification and delivery of the product or service, and not on the characteristics of the tenderer.

You should ensure the evaluation panel provides justification of their scoring. This will help when informing unsuccessful tenderers. A full justification of scoring is important and a record should be kept to ensure fairness and transparency of the process.

Comments made should not simply be a restatement of the scoring methodology. For example, if a response is assessed as “Good” it will not be sufficient to state that it is “relevant and good”. Comments must identify the features of the submission itself which justify the particular score. It may also be helpful to record what could have been added to the tender response to secure a higher score.

If PCS-Tender is being used, the justification for scores should be recorded on the system.

For the procurement of Care and Support Services, an Organisation should consider whether it is appropriate for people who use the services and their carers to be involved in decision making.  For example, participation in site visits and interviews with service providers or representation on the evaluation panel. The participation of these people must be consistent throughout the process. For example if they are involved in interviews with service providers, they must participate in all of the interviews arranged with service providers. Care must be taken, when involving people who use services and also their carers in the evaluation of tenders, to ensure that they:

• understand the evaluation process and are clear about their role in it;
• understand the criteria against which tenderers are to be evaluated;
• understand their obligation to be objective and impartial and to treat tenderers equally;
• understand issues relating to the commercial confidentiality of service providers;
• are able to commit the necessary time; and
• receive appropriate training and support.

The involvement of people who use services and their carers, if appropriate, in decision making should be considered on a case-by-case basis. It may, for example, be appropriate to involve them in the evaluation of tenders for the delivery of a discrete service for a small number of individuals.

It is best practice to obtain at least three tender responses, where possible. Where tenderers issued with a copy of the ITT do not submit a response, you should ask for reasons why.  You should record these reasons on file to aid future strategy development.

If only two tenders are received you should consider whether to:

• continue with the competition or  
• review the specification and re-start the process with a view to securing higher levels of engagement.

In making such a decision you should consider:

• the size of the market,
• whether the bids received provide sufficient competition  and
• whether there is a risk that one or more of the tenderers would not participate in a new competition.

If only one tender response is received you should consider why this is.  For example has the market been restricted in some way or has the opportunity been unattractive?. In such cases you should consider restarting the process.

If you are satisfied that there are no particular reasons for receiving only one bid, and that bid is compliant, then you may consider continuing.

The above should be conducted in accordance with your internal governance procedures.

Non Competitive Action

You may consider the use of a Non Competitive Action (NCA) in cases of exceptional circumstances. You must receive approval from the appropriate person in your Organisation e.g. your Head of Procurement, before proceeding.

Tenderers must ensure their bid is submitted  under the rules of the competition and before the specified deadline.

In exceptional circumstances a bid that arrived after the deadline maybe accepted into the competition. The policy for addressing late tenders is subject to the internal governance for your organisation, legislation and case law.

If you are in doubt about whether to allow a late bid into the competition professional procurement and/or legal advice should be sought. There must be a clear audit trail of the handling of late bids and any decision taken.

If PCS-Tender is being used, you will be able to identify the tenderers who have submitted late tenders. You can then determine whether to open the late tender or reject it.

It is best practice for you to notify the tenderers if the late tender has been accepted or rejected.

Contract Notices must be published on Public Contracts Scotland (PCS). 

PCS is the national advertising portal.  It provides free access for suppliers to contract opportunities and guides buyers through the process of creating a Contract Notice.  

Contract Notices published via PCS will contain all of the mandatory information required. 

It is important that the Contract Notice provides the scope of the requirement, which could include the value, the volume of goods or the nature and extent of services. 

Framework Agreement Contract Notices must clearly identify the bodies which will be entitled to use it.

If the proposed contract is to be a reserved contract, the Contract Notice must state this.

 The Contract Notice must also state:

• if the organisation intends to hold an electronic auction;

• if presentation of tenders in the form of electronic catalogues is accepted or required;

• whether or not variants will be allowed or required; and

• information in respect of any lots.

Your Contract Notice must state how the bidders will be able to access the Procurement Documentation e.g. if PCS-Tender is used, it must provide the relevant reference numbers for the specific procurement. 

If uploading Procurement Documents to PCS (Advertising) size restrictions currently apply:

• 10Mb per document and a maximum of 40Mb for the buyer; and

• 10Mb per document with a maximum of 30Mb for the Supplier SPD Statements.

The Contract Notice should contain the minimum and specific requirements for your procurement exercise.  You should include statements relating to the relevant SPD.

You should include appropriate statements in the Contract Notice that are aligned to the relevant exclusion and selection questions being used in the SPD for your procurement. 

Standardised statements relating to the SPD questions have been developed.  These support you in adopting a standard approach to defining minimum requirements in your Contract Notice.  

Unlike SPD questions, you can create new or amend the existing standardised statement(s).  These will then be included in the Contract Notice. Any amended or additional statements must reflect the selection criteria and minimum standards of the procurement exercise.

A PIN alerts potential bidders to future planned procurements and allows them time to prepare to bid for the contracts announced. 

It can also enable reduction of timescales once the specific Contract Notice has been despatched.

Organisations can issue a PIN as a means to seek information from suppliers to the market when developing a procurement.

• The standard PIN form should be used
• The PIN must have been sent between 35 days and 12 months before the date on which the Contract Notice is sent
• Once a PIN has been published, reductions in timescales for competitions identified in the PIN are possible

The period covered by a PIN must be a maximum of 12 months from the date on which the notice is sent for publication. 

All Contract Notices must be published on Public Contracts Scotland (PCS).

PCS is the national advertising portal which provides suppliers with free access to contract opportunities. It also guides Buyers through the process of creating a Contract Notice on its website.

PCS automatically creates a Contract Notice on the UK Find a Tender Service (FTS).

Your contract notice must set out the specific requirements and minimum standards that are required in the SPD for your process.  These must be relevant and proportionate to the procurement.

If you are using the SPD capability in PCS-T or the SPD Word document you must set out the specific requirements and minimum standards required. This is not necessary if you are using the online SPD Module on PCS asthe relevant information is contained within the module already and done automatically. 

A selection of Standardised Statements has been developed (and is continually updated) to support Buyers in developing their SPD and these can be used as a guide to help you.

For Route 2 Care and Support Services procurements, you may decide if you wish to advertise the requirement or not. In the case of:

• direct award without advertising the requirement you only need to publish a Contract Award Notice on PCS, but not a Social and other Specific Services Contract Notice advertising the requirement;

• advertising the requirement you need to publish a Social and other Specific Services Contract Notice advertising the requirement and also a Contract Award Notice on PCS.

Electronic auctions cannot be used.

From 26 October 2023, OJEU are making changes to the TED portal (https://enotices.ted.europa.eu/contentView?page=index) which means that notifications from PCS will no longer be compatible. Therefore, from that date, notifications relating to transitional and EU funded procurements will no longer be sent to TED from PCS. Organisations still wishing to notify TED of their procurement activity are able to do so themselves. 

PCS will be updated to reflect these changes after 26 October 2023.

Arrangements Prior to 26 October 2023

Since 1 January 2021, (the end of the transition period after EU Exit) higher value notices have been published on the UK e-notification service Find a Tender Service (FTS) as well as appearing on PCS. This replaced the requirement for them to be published on the Official Journal of the European Union (via their TED) system, with two exceptions. Transitional procurements (public sector contract opportunities that were launched but not concluded before 11pm on 31 December 2020) and all notices relating to EU funded procurement exercises, have continued to be published on TED, as well as FTS and PCS. This has been managed automatically by PCS.  This arrangement will cease on 26 October 2023.

If you are in doubt whether your procurement exercise is or is not EU funded, please seek legal advice. 

Please note that the information and guidance provided in the Procurement Journey routes are not designed to cover the specifics that are often applicable to such procurement exercises and we would always advise you to seek specific legal guidance where you need further support.