Questions submitted by potential tenderers and the answers provided by your organisation must be anonymised. These must also be circulated to all potential tenderers involved in the process.

You must supply responses to all tenderers no later than six days before the deadline for tender responses. This time limit changes to not later than four days for the open, restricted and competitive procedure with negotiation when the accelerated procedure is used. 

Deadlines must be extended where:

• Additional information requested by a tenderer, is not supplied at least six days before the deadline. This information must have been requested in good time and be significant or;
• Significant changes are made to the procurement documents. 

The time limit changes to not later than four days when the accelerated procedure is used. 

Using an electronic tendering system, for example Public Contracts Scotland - Tender, allows the receipt and circulation of questions and answers.

Public Contracts Scotland offers similar functionality via its bulletin board.

If you do not use an electronic system, clear instructions and contact details should be provided to all potential bidders within the ITT documentation. All communications during the procurement activity should be coordinated by you and documented.

Electronic tendering enables you to manage the procurement process online. It:

• reduces the paperwork involved in tendering exercises
• provides an electronic audit trail
• allows you to provide a faster response to questions and points of clarification during the tender process.

It is best practice to use PCS-Tender, if the Buyer has access to it, as PCS-Tender manages the administrative aspects of the tendering process.

If PCS-Tender is being used, the relevant project code should be entered into the Contract Notice on Public Contracts Scotland (PCS). Alternatively, if the Buyer does not have access to PCS-Tender, then Public Contracts Scotland – Advertising should be used throughout the process.

Invitation to Tender documents must be:

• offered on the internet
• unrestricted
• with full direct access
• non-discriminatory in manner
• free of charge.

These documents must be available from the date of publication of a Contract Notice, or the date on which the Invitation to Confirm Interest was sent. 

Only those bidders who have passed the appropriate selection stage will be allowed to tender in a two-stage procedure.

For the following procedures:

• Restricted Procedure
• Competitive Dialogue Procedure
• Innovation Partnership
• Competitive Procedure with Negotiation

An invitation to submit a tender must be issued to selected bidders at the same time and in writing. However, the open procedure allows for ITTs to be issued on request at any point prior to the date set for submission of tenders.

Where ITT documents cannot be issued electronically for example, because the contract is of a nature which requires the use of specialised tools and/or files, other transmission means can be used.  The tender time limit should be increased by five days except where permitted in a case of duly substantiated urgency.

Timescales for each procedure can be found in the relevant procurement route station.

Deadlines must be extended where:

• additional information requested by a bidder is not supplied at least six days before the deadline.  This information must have been requested by the bidder in good time and is of significant importance.
• significant changes are made to the procurement documents. This will be reduced to four days when the accelerated procedure is used.

The length of extension must be proportionate to the complexity of the change and/or the additional information being provided. 

To proceed with a tender extension the necessary approval must be obtained in accordance with your internal governance and legislation. If the date is amended, the new date should be notified to all tenderers. If any tenderer have already submitted a bid they should be given the opportunity of withdrawing their original bid.  They can then submit a revised bid in line with the extended tender deadline.

If you use PCS Tender you must provide:

• the relevant reference numbers for the specific procurement; and
• set time limits for the receipt of tenders (bearing in mind statutory minimums).

If uploading Procurement Documents to PCS (Advertising) file size restrictions apply. These are:

• 10Mb per document a maximum of 40Mb for the buyer; and
• 10Mb per document with a maximum of 30Mb for the Supplier.

If you are using PCS-Tender, attachments cannot be added to the Contract Notice on PCS Advertising. You must add your documents to PCS-Tender.

When determining the start date of the contract, an organisation should take into account any process and timescales for registering a care service where this involves a new service or change in the registration of a service. In all cases, an organisation should seek to observe the timescales it has set for decision making.

Electronic auctions should not, in any circumstances, be used for Care and Support Services procurement.

You must put the exclusion statement under II.2.14 (Additional Information) of the contract notice, and the selection statements under III.1.4 (Objective Rules and Criteria for Participation) of the Contract Notice.

All notices above threshold relating to EU funded procurement exercises (even when the original contract notice is published after December 2020) need to be published via OJEU to ensure compliance. The publication of notices will be managed automatically by Public Contracts Scotland (PCS). 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.

The Contract Notice must contain the minimum and specific requirements for your procurement exercise. You should include the standardised statements relating to their relevant SPD questions. This is not necessary if using the online SPD module on PCS as the relevant information is contained within the module.

If using the PCS-T SPD, you can create new statements or amend the existing statement(s) included in the Standardised Statements document.  You will then include the statements within the Contract Notice.

Additional or amended statements should only be used if no suitable standardised statements already exist. You must ensure all statements used in the procurement exercise must:

• relate to a specific question in the SPD;
• reflect the selection criteria; and
• reflect the minimum requirements.

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. In the case of Contract Notices for Framework Agreements it must clearly identify the bodies entitled to use the Framework Agreement.

You must include in your Contract Notice whether your proposed contract is to be a reserved contract. It must also state:

• if you intend to hold an electronic auction;
• whether presenting tenders in an electronic catalogues format is acceptable or required;
• whether or not variants are authorised or required; and
• any information in respect of any lots.

If you estimate your contract value at or greater than £4,000,000 you must include a community benefit requirements summary in your Contract Notice. 

If you do not intend to include community benefits in your contract you must state the reasons why in your Contract Notice. 

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. 

The questions within the ITT must be consistent with the evaluation criteria and weightings published within the Contract Notice and procurement documents.

You should also draft a timetable for the process which must comply with applicable minimum timescales detailed in Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.  For more information refer to Selection, Award & Exclusion criteria.

Price/financial evaluation criteria should include:

• whole life cost comparisons
• quantifiable financial benefits arising from the technical evaluation (e.g. speed, fuel or electricity consumption, coverage, shelf life, etc.)
• fixed or variable pricing
• cost of components, spare parts, consumables and servicing
• Life-cycle costing where appropriate
• Risk analysis and financial appraisal (for major contracts of strategic importance, especially those of an innovative nature)

Whilst developing the documentation you will draw information from the Developing Strategy stage of the Procurement Journey. 

The evaluation criteria in the ITT must be agreed with the User Intelligence Group (UIG).  The criteria will identify which of the eligible tenderers will deliver best value for money  based on the Most Economically Advantageous Tender.

You must identify the Most Economically Advantageous Tender on the basis of the Best Price Quality Ratio. This will be assessed on criteria linked to the contract subject matter and must include the price or cost using a cost effectiveness approach.  A cost effectiveness approach may include Life Cycle Impact Mapping.

You may also wish to consider the areas below for inclusion within the ITT documentation:

• e-Commerce (Found Below): eCapability ITT section  /  ITT - Appendix X - eProcurement Information / E Auctions 
• contract and supplier management information
• proposed implementation plan
• management information
• roles & responsibilities
• key performance indicators (KPIs)
• mini-competition guidance: details of process to be followed for call offs

Buyers can ask for the most updated list of organisations for each of the worksheets on Appendix X.

ePS_Servicedesk@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

The ITT or the Invitation to Confirm Interest should include comprehensive information for potential bidders about the requirement being tendered. While there are a number of generic documents listed below that will require insertion into all packs (e.g. a reference to the relevant Contract Notice or Award Criteria weightings) some of the content will naturally be specific to each requirement and you should select those that you need to include in the ITT pack from the list below:

• a reference to the relevant Contract Notice, previously published
• Instructions to bidders including the tender submission deadline, address to which the tender submission is to be sent and the language which the tender submission must be submitted in
• you must issue an SPD to bidders.  For more information, please refer to Selection Criteria and SPD
• award Criteria weightings
• for services contracts, if deemed applicable, you should ask the bidders to indicate any share of the contract that they may subcontract and information about the subcontractors including their name and contact details.  You may request separate SPD responses from subcontractors and consortium members when deemed appropriate, in order to safeguard the effective delivery of the contract, based on relevance and proportionality to the contract
• For contracts which may be extended (i.e. that are not retendered), the nature, quantity and, where possible, the estimated time for exercising options
• The nature, quantity and, where possible, estimated publication dates of notices of future tenders
• The type of procedure e.g. a Restricted Procedure or Competitive Procedure with Negotiation procedure, etc.
• If applicable to the contract, the delivery of supplies, commencement or termination date(s)
• The address of the Organisation who will award the contract
• Economic and technical conditions, financial guarantees and information required from tenderers
• The form of the contract to be used e.g. purchase, lease, hire,  hire-purchase, or a combination
• If electronic access to the relevant Procurement Documents cannot be offered the address and deadline date for requesting procurement documents and the language(s) to be used
• Background and overview of the tendering and evaluation process including details of presentations and site visits, if applicable
• Terms and Conditions which will apply to any resulting contract with the principal supplier
• Specification and technical requirements
• Sustainable Procurement Duty requirements
• Cyber Security Requirements (refer to the Guidance Note on Supplier Cyber Security)
• Community Benefit requirements (consideration of which is mandatory in contracts valued equal or greater to £4M, although inclusion in all contracts/frameworks is recommended)
• Quality Questionnaire

The distinction between selection and award criteria is crucially important. Selection criteria are focused on "the bidder" and award criteria are focused on "the bid”. The buyer must maintain a clear distinction between both throughout the procurement process. This means that issues/questions which are appropriate to the selection criteria must be addressed at the selection stage and cannot form part of the award stage (even if they were omitted from the selection stage in error).  However, you can apply different aspects at selection and award if relevant i.e. you can look at the bidder's general staffing in selection, and the qualifications and experience of those to be assigned to the contract at award if that is relevant.

Although the selection and award criteria must be developed and managed quite separately, it is possible for buyers to conduct these stages simultaneously or in any order where the procedure allows.  For instance, when using an Open Procedure it may be desirable to assess the tenders (award stage) prior to checking minimum criteria are met when only a small number of bids have been received.  Where this is done you must still ensure that you verify the absence of grounds for exclusion and of fulfilment of the selection criteria.  This needs to be carried out in an impartial and transparent manner so that no contract is awarded to a bidder that should have been excluded or does not meet the selection criteria.

Example areas that are commonly known as "selection" and "award" criteria are listed in the table below:

Organisations are required by law to include such conditions relating to the performance of the contract as are reasonably necessary to ensure that the bidder which is awarded the contract complies with environmental, social and labour law in performing the contract, providing that these are linked to the subject matter of the contract, and are indicated in the procurement documents.  To help meet this requirement, organisations should consider the Scottish Procurement Policy Note 09/2016 which includes guidance and contract conditions an organisation can adapt for use in its contracts.  If specific performance conditions are to be used they must be included in the Prior Information Notice or the Contract Notice and in the Procurement Documents.

Bidders may be requested to state, in their tender or request to participate, the names and professional qualifications of the staff involved in the performance of the contract.

A clearly documented process must be followed throughout the award stage, as for the whole of the procurement process, in order to ensure there are no inconsistencies in the procurement process, which could ultimately result in a legal challenge.

Equality legislation places duties on all public bodies. In exercising their functions, they must have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other prohibited conduct
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not
• foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not

You should ask bidders to self-certify that they comply with all relevant equality legislation.

Where evidence is provided of equality legislation breaches, you must consider any remedial action the bidder has taken to address these.

For organisations working outside the UK, equality questions relate to the equivalent legislation in the country where the bidder is located / breach occurred.

Effective contract management and monitoring should be undertaken to ensure that the equality assessment continues to be applied throughout the contract duration.

Where you have determined that minimum standards are applicable (either within selection or award criteria) they must relate to and be proportionate to the subject matter of the requirement.  This must be clearly detailed in the appropriate documentation.

When you wish to apply minimum standards to limit the number of potential suppliers to be invited to tender, minimum standards or objective criteria must be specified or referred to in the Contract Notice. This must be detailed in the procurement documentation to allow the rejection of potential suppliers.

Similarly if a pass mark can only be obtained by a response that meets the minimum requirement, this must be clearly stated within the scoring guidance provided to suppliers. 

You may consider variants to the requirements as long as it has been specified in the Contract Notice and in the Procurement Documents, together with the minimum requirements and how the variant will be evaluated. Variants cannot be considered unless this has been done and they meet the minimum requirements. All variant bids should be evaluated using the same criteria as the standard bids and compared on a like-for-like basis.

An organisation should also consider whether to allow potential service providers to set out options in relation to different TUPE scenarios within its tenders. If so, it should provide clear directions to tenderers to ensure that bids can be compared on a like-for-like basis.

As with all aspects of the procurement process, such decisions and actions must be made in line with your own organisation’s governance procedures and in any event, be in line with any stated intentions that were advertised in the relevant Procurement Documents.

Organisations are required by law to publish details of the criteria to be used to identify the supplier to whom the contract will be awarded. The Contract Notice must provide a brief description of criteria to be used for award of the contract. 

An Organisation must also specify in the relevant Procurement Documents the relative weighting which it will give to each of the criteria chosen to determine the most economically advantageous tender.  The weighting and score given to an award criterion should be considered on a case-by-case basis taking into account the other relevant criteria and the relative impact that each will have on the quality of the service delivery or goods supplied.  Weighting must ensure the appropriate balance between the quality and cost / price of the contract and be proportionate to the contract, taking care not to negatively affect the quality of the contract to be performed. It is best practice that respective weightings are agreed by the UIG before the Contract Notice is published and any documentation issued.

If there is any doubt as to the level of detail that must be disclosed/published, you should seek specialist professional procurement or legal advice and guidance.

The agreed and advertised award criteria and weightings must not be changed once they have been notified to the tenderers.

If your contract will require sub-contractors (and sub-sub contractors) you should evaluate at award stage how bidders will ensure payment of these sub-contractors throughout all stages of the supply chain.  Payment should be made within the standard 30 day payment terms and bidders should communicate how this will be managed.

All public bodies advertising requirements which may require the use of sub-contractors should adopt the statement:

Prompt Payment Award Statement

Confirmation that you will include the standard clause in all contracts used in the delivery of the requirements, ensuring payment of sub-contractors at all stages of the supply chain within 30 days,  include a point of contact for sub-contractors to refer to in the case of payment difficulties and provide evidence and reports to the contracting authority on a regular basis.

If a bidder is unable to confirm acceptance of the award statement, they should not be awarded the contract unless there are extenuating circumstances.

See Fair Work First in Procurement guidance, for evaluation and award

Award criteria can also relate to the supply or use of ethically or fairly traded products. In all cases, award criteria must be proportionate and should relate to the work, supply or service being procured, and not to the general capacities or qualities of the bidder. A general corporate social responsibility policy is unlikely to demonstrate suitability to deliver a contract. For further guidance please refer to the Sustainable Procurement Tools. 

Additional guidance on award criteria can be found in C&SS Award Criteria Guidance document.

In accordance with regulation 76(9) of The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, an organisation may now also take account of some other issues when procuring these services including:

• the quality of the service;
• the continuity of the service;
• the affordability of the service;
• the availability and comprehensiveness of the service;
• the accessibility of the service;
• the needs of different types of service users;
• the involvement of service users; and
• innovation.

This is not an exhaustive list and there may be other considerations that an organisation may also take account of and which are relevant on a case-by-case basis.

A single stage procedure asks bidders to submit all relevant information at the same time.  This will usually take the form of a completed SPD document, alongside the bidders responses to the rest of the procurement documents e.g. Invitation to Tender (ITT).

In this instance the bidders' SPD responses should be assessed on a pass/fail basis, and none of the questions should be scored and weighted, as there is no requirement to shortlist.

In a two stage procedure, bidders will provide information in two distinct stages.  Firstly the bidder will submit the SPD for evaluation by the buyer. All of the exclusion questions and most of the selection questions will be assessed on a pass/fail basis. 

The technical and professional ability section of the SPD also includes the ability to score and weight questions.  This allows the buyer to rank responses and shortlist a number of bidders to invite to tender.

The scoring and weighting methodology must be fair, transparent and clearly explained to all bidders upfront.

Buyers should define the scoring and weighting process that will be taken in the Contract Notice or within the SPD module on Public Contracts Scotland (PCS).

Bidders must be given the opportunity to provide evidence that they have taken sufficient and appropriate remedial action i.e. they have ‘self-cleansed’. If you are satisfied that the evidence provided is sufficient to demonstrate reliability, you must not exclude the bidder from the procurement procedure on those grounds.

The bidder must satisfy that it has 

• paid, or undertaken to pay, compensation for any damage caused by the criminal offence or misconduct
• provided detailed facts and circumstances by collaborating with the investigating authorities and
• taken appropriate concrete technical, organisational and personnel measures to prevent further criminal offences or misconduct.

When considering any self-cleansing measures, organisations must consider all relevant factors. This includes the gravity and particular circumstances of the criminal offence or misconduct.

If you believe the bidder’s remedial action is not sufficient to demonstrate reliability, you must provide the bidder with a statement outlining the reasons for the decision. The statement of reasons must be provided in writing as soon as is reasonably practicable to allow the bidder to understand why the self-cleansing measures taken are insufficient.

A set of standardised statements, which can be found at the bottom of this page, has been developed to support you in explaining your selection criteria to bidders. 

Each standardised statement is aligned to a selection question in the SPD.  You should select the statements relevant to your procurement exercise. In some instances, you are able to adapt them.

The full list of statements can be found in the standardised statement document and an example is included below:

SPD Question:

The bidder should provide its (“general”) yearly turnover for the number of financial years specified in the relevant Contract Notice

Standardised Statement tailored to procurement exercise

Bidders will be required to have a minimum “general” yearly turnover of £2m GBP for the last 2 years

Some of the standardised statements, for example those relating to Environmental Management Legislation and Quality Management Procedures, are very lengthy. Therefore you should review these carefully and ensure that you select only those parts of the standardised statements that allow you to specify your minimum requirements. You should be careful to ensure that the criteria included is proportionate.

This process will enable you to adopt a standard approach to defining the selection criteria in Contract Notices.

If using PCS-Tender, you should set out your specific requirements and minimum standards in the Contract Notice. 

If using the online SPD module on PCS there is no need to add the statements in the Contract Notice, it should be added directly to the module.

More information on where to state information in the Contract Notice can be found on the Contract Notice and Advertising station.

Where the bidder is relying on other parties to meet the selection criteria, for example as part of a consortium or is using a sub-contractor,  you should request a separate SPD response from each party being relied on.

These parties should complete the exclusion criteria section of the SPD and whichever selection questions, the main bidder is relying on them for.

If the bidder is using a sub-contractor but not relying on them to meet the selection criteria, each sub-contractor should complete an SPD response.  In this instance, they will only need to complete the exclusion criteria.

This should be evaluated alongside the main bidders SPD.

Where a party meets the mandatory grounds for exclusion you must require that the main bidder to replaces them.

Where there are discretionary grounds for the exclusion you may require the bidder(s) to be replaced.  This should be considered on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the various circumstances of the procurement exercise.

Where a bidder relies upon the capacities of other entities with regard to criteria relating to economic and financial standing you may require the bidder and those entities to be jointly liable for the performance of the contract.

In the case of supply or service contracts your organisation may require certain critical tasks to be performed directly by the bidder itself or, where the tender is submitted by a group of bidders, by a participant in that group.

You can find more information on the SPD for a works contract by emailing: PropertyandConstruction@gov.scot

Shortlisting in the SPD allows a buyer to rank responses. This should only be done within the Technical and Professional Ability section.  Ranking responses will allow you to determine who should be shortlisted and taken forward to the next stage of the procurement exercise.

For more information, go to the selection criteria page.

Bidders may reuse the information that has been provided in an SPD which has already been used in a previous procurement procedure, as long as the information remains correct and continues to be pertinent.

The online SPD module on PCS supports this by allowing bidders to save a supplier profile which enables them to recall their SPD responses when completing future SPD requests.

Buyers may consider allowing the bidders to answer the global question to confirm they meet ALL selection criteria as specified in the Contract Notice. 

If the buyer chooses to include this global question, they should be confident that by NOT answering any other questions on selection criteria, that there is no risk to the procurement process, or the supply of goods, services or works as a result of the bidders response.

If you choose to include this question, then you can also use the questions in Part V, which ask bidders to describe how they meet the shortlisting criteria you have set out in the Contract Notice.

You may use Part V of the SPD when using PCS-Tender to reduce the number of already qualified candidates who meet all the exclusion and selection criteria in the SPD.

Part V of the SPD can only be used for restricted procedures, competitive procedure with negotiation, competitive dialogue procedure and innovation partnerships. It cannot be used in the case of open procedures and negotiated procedure without prior publication. Part V may be used if it is proportionate and relevant to the contract and it is specified in the Contract Notice.

If you decide to use Part V of the SPD, you need to specify the objective and non-discriminatory criteria or rules to be applied, the minimum number of bidders and where applicable, the maximum number the organisation intends to invite to tender or conduct dialogue. This information, must be accompanied by requirements concerning any (types of) certificates or forms of documentary evidence,  to be produced, as set out in the relevant Contract Notice.

The minimum number of bidders that may be invited by an Organisation to a restricted procedure is five. In any event the number of candidates invited must be sufficient to ensure genuine competition (note if the number of bidders meeting the selection criteria is fewer than five the procurement can still proceed). In a competitive dialogue,  competitive procedure with negotiation and innovation partnership the minimum number of candidates taken forward by the Organisation is three. In any event the number of candidates invited must be sufficient to ensure genuine competition (note if the number of bidders meeting the selection criteria is fewer than five the procurement can still proceed).

The mandatory exclusion grounds regulations 58(1) to (3) of Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 must be applied to all procurements, and an organisation can choose to apply the discretionary exclusion grounds and selection criteria and to use the SPD for this purpose without amending the questions. It is a matter of best practice to do so.

If you are using PCS-Tender financial ratios these should be included in the Contract Notice or procurement documents.

If you are using the online SPD module in PCS, there is a drop down menu of ratios to choose from.  These use standard terminology from the Scottish Government Accountancy Services.  Your organisation may use differing terminology for these.  If this is the case, or you want to add other ratios not listed, you can use the other financial requirements question to specify your ratio.

Selection criteria are focused on "the bidder" and award criteria are focused on "the bid”.

Selection criteria assess things like the bidders economic standing or technical qualifications whereas award criteria are concerned with how they will deliver the contract.

You should maintain a clear distinction between both throughout the procurement process and you should note that you cannot use the same criteria at both selection and award stage.

You should assess the financial standing of bidders to ensure that they are financially stable enough to carry out the contract. In order to assess this you may ask for information such as financial ratios or turnover information from the bidders. 

In all cases, care should be taken not to set minimum standards that are too high and/or which might exclude capable suppliers, especially SMEs and newly formed companies. 

For lower-risk procurement exercises (for example: where there are numerous suppliers capable of carrying out the contract; no time constraints; payment is only to be made after the work completed) you should consider whether it is necessary to set any selection criteria relating to economic and financial standing

Turnover

The Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2015 state that you must not ask bidders to have a minimum turnover which exceeds twice the estimated contract value. This helps to remove obstacles to SME involvement in public procurement.

However, you can ask in certain duly justified circumstances for a higher turnover such as high-risk contracts or where the timely and correct performance of the contract is crucial.

Accounts

You may require bidders to provide annual account information.  For example showing the ratio between assets and liabilities. The PCS SPD module includes a list of commonly used financial ratios for you to pick from.

You can only exclude bidders on the basis of ratios identified in the Contract Notice so you should ensure that they are accurate and relevant.

You should also consider that not all bidders have an audited set of accounts.  As a result you must determine, on a case by case basis, what is essential information.  This should be specified in the contract notice.

Insurance Levels

It might be appropriate for bidders to have an appropriate level of insurance in place to carry out the contract.  This must be relevant and proportionate to the value of the contract and the level of risk.

The bidder is not required to have the relevant insurance in place at the time of bidding.  They only need to confirm that they would be willing to obtain the required insurance level(s) if successful in winning the contract.  You must check that any such commitment has been put in place at the Contract Award stage.

You should consider what is required on a case-by-case basis. You must specify what insurance level(s) are required in the contract notice or in the PCS SPD module.

Note - it is a legal requirement that all companies (excluding sole traders) hold Employer’s (Compulsory) Liability Insurance of £5M as a minimum

To assess the bidders capability you can ask them to provide relevant examples of previous work to demonstrate that they have sufficient  experience to deliver the contract. For goods and services, the examples provided by bidders must only be from the previous three years.  The examples requested should be relevant and proportionate to the procurement exercise.

You should be careful when creating the technical and professional ability minimum requirements to not exclude bidders who can demonstrate  they have the capacity and capability to deliver the contract, but may not have delivered exactly the same goods or services previously. This will ensure opportunities are provided to bidders to access new markets or provide innovative solutions, no matter their size or status.

Remember that bidders do not need to submit examples from their existing organisation to meet the selection criteria.  They can submit relevant examples which they worked on in previous employment to demonstrate their previous experience.  This is particularly helpful to new businesses. 

It is also acceptable for bidders to rely on other parties for certain parts of the selection criteria, for example, they may rely on a sub-contractor for experience in a certain area.

Qualifications

Depending on the requirement, it can be more appropriate to evaluate qualifications as part of the award criteria.

If you do decide to evaluate qualifications as part of the selection stage, you should ensure the required qualifications are set upfront and clearly stated in the Contract Notice (or PCS SPD module).

Use of References 

Buyers may request references from bidders in order to review previous experience. If the bidder is unable to provide the reference required, it may provide other evidence which you consider appropriate.

Depending on the nature of the contract, you may require the bidder to confirm they comply with certain quality management standards or hold specific certificates.

You should ensure that any minimum standards are proportionate to the contract and are not set too high. 

For example, if you require BS EN ISO 9001 you should accept any accredited independent third party certificate of compliance in accordance with the relevant requirements.  You should also accept other examples of equivalent measures provided by the bidder which proves the proposed measures comply with the required standards e.g. documented quality management policies and procedures.

Health and Safety Legislation

The degree to which health and safety requirements are required will vary according to the procurement exercise.  Any measure you take must be relevant, proportionate (not set too high), and be stated in the Contract Notice.  You must not select any bidders if they do not meet the stated health and safety legislation minimum requirements.

You should put in place on going monitoring procedures throughout the duration of the contracts to ensure compliance with health and safety requirements.  Within the SPD, this should be specified as part of the quality management section.

Further help in setting these standards can be found in the Standardised Statements.

Depending on the nature of the contract, you may require the bidder to confirm that they comply with certain environmental management legislation.

You should ensure that any minimum standards are proportionate to the contract and are not overly onerous.

For example if you require BS EN ISO 14001 you should accept any accredited independent third party certificate of compliance in accordance with the relevant requirements.  You should also accept other examples of equivalent measures provided by the bidder which proves the proposed measures comply with the required standards e.g. documented environmental management policies and procedures.

Further help in setting these standards can be found in the Standardised Statements.

Organisations must publish details of the evaluation criteria to be used to either:

• select the bidders to be invited to bid for the contract or
• identify the supplier to whom the contract will be awarded.

It is best practice that evaluation criteria and respective weightings for both selection and award stages are agreed by the User Intelligence Group (UIG) before the Contract Notice is published and any documentation issued.

The evaluation criteria will comprise of (depending upon the stage of the competition):

• The selection or award criteria;
• Sub-criteria;
• Weightings;
• Minimum standards;
• Pass marks (if any) etc.

If there is any doubt as to the level of detail that must be disclosed/published, you should seek specialist professional procurement or legal advice and guidance.

The agreed and advertised selection and award criteria and weightings must not be changed once they have been notified to the tenderers.

Evaluation criteria should be published under II.2.9 (Information about the limits on the number of candidates to be invited) of the Contract Notice or II.2.14 (Additional Information) of the Social and other Specific Services Contract Notice (if you decide to advertise your C&SS requirements)  This allows bidders to see how their responses will be evaluated.  

If the online PCS SPD Module is used, the scoring methodology needs to be detailed in the module.  This does not need to be included in the Contract Notice.

If you are unable to publish these criteria in the Contract Notice or within the SPD Module, as an absolute minimum, you must state them in the Procurement Documents.

You must consider if bidders may use a supply chain to deliver the requirements, and if so, the Single Procurement Document (SPD) question 4C.4 and its standardised statement should be included in your selection criteria.

Adding this will require bidders to provide evidence of:

• their standard payment terms;

• their payment performance in line with those terms; and 

• an improvement plan, if necessary, detailing timely remedies to achieve good payment performance.

For examples of payment performance evidence and improvement plan guidance please reference the prompt payment page.
 

Selection criteria applied to individual procurement processes must be relevant and proportionate to the subject matter of the contract.

It is possible that selection criteria may address social issues by applying relevant criteria in respect of the technical and professional ability of those involved in the performance of the contract. For example, where high volumes of workers are involved, a public body may ask for evidence of capacity and capability to recruit and retain staff in a fair way or ask for evidence of staff development practices.

It may be more appropriate to include Fair Work practices in the award criteria.  This will encourage bidders to explain how existing or new Fair Work practices will positively impact on the way the contract is performed.

The Fair Work First in Procurement guidance will help you consider how to structure and adapt a Fair Work practices criterion to the needs of the contract.

You may choose to use the SPD for selection without amending the questions, and it is a matter of best practice to do so.

The evaluation criteria should be published under II.2.14 (Additional Information) of the Social and other Specific Services Contract Notice (if you decide to advertise your C&SS requirements) to allow bidders to clearly see how their responses will be evaluated. 

For the Restricted Procedure, the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation, Competitive Dialogue Procedure and Innovation Partnerships you may limit the number of candidates invited to participate at the tender stage, or to engage in dialogue with. This can only be done if the Contract Notice and relevant Procurement Documents specify:

• your intent to limit the number of bidders and the minimum number and (if applicable) the maximum number of bidders you intend to invite to the tender stage; and
• the objective and non-discriminatory criteria or rules to be used.

The Organisation should invite a sufficient number of bidders to generate competition.  In limiting the number of bidders who will proceed through to the tender stage, the minimum number of qualified bidders should be as follows:

• Restricted Procedure – where an above threshold advert is required, the minimum number of bidders should be five.  In other cases three or four may be regarded as sufficient;
• Competitive Procedure with Negotiation, Competitive Dialogue Procedure and Innovation Partnership procedure – the minimum number of bidders should be three.

These must be bidders who requested to participate and meet the minimum requirements set out in the Selection Criteria. However, where the number of bidders who meet the selection criteria is less than the minimum number listed above, the Organisation may continue the procedure with the lesser number or discontinue the procedure.

Where an above threshold advertisement is required (this will be for all procedures other than negotiated procedure without prior publication), Contract Notices should be used to advertise all procurement procedures. 

The PIN is published before the start of the procurement process. The PIN allows potential bidders to prepare themselves to bid in time for the contract's announcement. It can also be used by any buying organisation to reduce procurement timescales (if certain criteria can be met).

It is best practice that evaluation criteria for both selection and award stages are agreed, along with respective weightings, by the UIG before the Contract Notice is published and any documentation issued. The evaluation criteria will comprise of the selection or award criteria (depending upon the stage of the competition), sub-criteria, weightings, minimum standards, pass marks (if any) etc.

If there is any doubt as to the level of detail that must be disclosed/published, you should seek specialist professional procurement or legal advice and guidance.

The agreed and advertised selection and award criteria and weightings must not be changed once they have been notified to the tenderers.

Sub-Central Organisations must not use a PIN as a call for competition.

The distinction between selection and award criteria is crucially important:

• Selection criteria are focused on "the bidder";
• Award criteria are focused on "the bid”.

You must maintain a clear distinction between both throughout the procurement process.

This means that issues/questions which are appropriate to the selection criteria must be addressed at that stage and cannot form part of the award stage.  This is the case even if they were omitted from the selection stage in error.

The selection and award criteria must be developed and managed separately.  It is possible to conduct these stages simultaneously or in any order where the procedure allows. For instance, when using an Open Procedure if you have a small number of bids you may want  to assess these bids prior to checking minimum exclusion and selection criteria are met. Where this is done you must still ensure you verify there are no grounds for exclusion and the selection criteria are met. This must be carried out in an impartial and transparent manner so that no contract is awarded to a bidder that should have been excluded or does not meet the selection criteria.

By applying exclusion grounds and developing relevant and proportionate selection and award criteria you can ensure the successful bidders are well placed to deliver best value for the Scottish public sector.

For Care and Support Services, consider the involvement of people who use the services and their carers (taking into account the nature and level of support they will require), in developing any criteria and preparing questions for use in interviews with potential service providers. An organisation must determine at the planning stage what criteria it will use to select potential suppliers, and what criteria it will use to evaluate tenderers. The mandatory exclusion grounds must be applied and an organisation may also choose to apply discretionary exclusion grounds, selection criteria and award criteria.

Additional guidance on award criteria can be found in C&SS Award Criteria Guidance document and please read the Guidance on Contract Renewal and Direct Award without Competition which can be found at the bottom of the page in the documents section.

Exclusion grounds, selection and award criteria must be clearly defined in:

• The Contract Notice;
• The call for competition, when used as a Contract Notice.

This is to ensure a common understanding of the requirements by all bidders.

These criteria must not be changed or waived during the procurement process e.g. the Contract Notice and the call for competition must contain a list and brief description of criteria.  This must include the  situations where bidders may be excluded and detail the, minimum and specific requirements.

The Evaluation matrix may assist you in your evaluation if you are not using PCS-T. More information on evaluation criteria can be found on the Award Criteria station.

A supported business:

• has a main aim of the social and professional integration of disabled or disadvantaged persons,
• Has at least 30% of their employees who are disabled or disadvantaged workers  

You can “reserve” your competition to supported businesses where it is assessed as appropriate.  This is referred to as a Reserved Contract.

It is also possible for your Organisation to provide for a contract to be performed in the context of an employment programme operated by a supported business.   This is a way buyers can encourage involvement of disabled and disadvantaged persons.

The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 requires an organisation to consider:

• How it may involve supported businesses. This can be facilitated by how the procurement process is conducted;
• Acting in a way to best bring about the involvement of supported businesses where it occurs

SPPN 4/2017 provides further information and guidance on reserving contracts for supported businesses, including:

• Determining whether an organisation meets the definition of a supported business (for the purposes of public procurement legislation);
• Identifying supported businesses;
• Monitoring and reporting.

Groups of suppliers can bid together and must not be required to take a specific legal form to do so. 

You can set contract conditions which are specific to a group bid.

You can explicitly state requirements regarding group economic and financial standing or the criteria relating to technical and professional ability.   Such conditions must be justified by objective reasons and be proportionate to the contract.

Depending on the extent to which suppliers will be relied on to perform the contract, you may require particular members of the supplier group to meet all or some of the selection criteria.

Your Organisation may require the group to take a legal form but only if they are awarded the contract. For example, to appoint a lead contractor and accept joint and several liability if required for the performance of the contract

If your contract will require sub-contractors (and sub-sub contractors) you should evaluate at award stage how bidders will ensure payment of sub-contractors throughout your supply chain.  Payment should be made within the standard 30 day payment terms and bidders should communicate how this will be managed.

All public bodies advertising requirements which may require the use of sub-contractors should adopt the statement:

Standard Prompt Payment Statement

Confirmation that you will include the standard clause in all contracts used in the delivery of the requirements, ensuring payment of sub-contractors at all stages of the supply chain within 30 days, include a point of contact for sub-contractors to refer to in the case of payment difficulties and provide evidence and reports to the contracting authority on a regular basis.

If a bidder is unable to confirm acceptance of the award statement, then they should be removed from the tendering process.

All exclusion, selection and award criteria must be relevant and proportionate to the subject matter of the contract. You must set out your specific requirements, the relevant exclusion grounds and the minimum standards that are relevant for your procurement exercise in the Contract Notice.

Statutory Guidance has been published on Selection of Tenderers and Award of Contracts.

Technical Specifications and Standards

Within a technical specification you must avoid a reference which has the effect of favouring or eliminating particular suppliers.  For example, by asking for a specific make or source, or referring to a particular process, or trademark, patent, type, origin or means of production e.g. do not specify "Hoover" when we mean a vacuum cleaner or "Intel" when we mean a Central Processing Unit of a PC.

Such reference may only be justified if either:

• the subject of the contract makes using this kind of reference unavoidable; or
• in exceptional circumstances where the subject of the contract cannot be described in a way which is precise and understood by all bidders.

In either of the above circumstances, such must be accompanied by the words "or equivalent".

The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 set extensive rules on how organisations may define and incorporate technical specifications and standards.

Output/Performance Specification

The specification should be written in "performance" terms, which focuses on the product function or service output required. This means building the specification around a description of what is to be achieved rather than a fixed description of exactly how it should be done.  This encourages marketplace innovation, allowing and encouraging suppliers to propose modern (including environmentally preferable) solutions.

Design Specification

In very exceptional circumstances and for a very limited number of products or services, a "design" specification may be unavoidable because of the nature of the requirement.

This kind of specification starts with exact details of the physical dimensions, the materials used, power input and output, the manufacturing processes required, and so on.

However, this should always be tested and guidance sought, as a design specification can greatly restrict competition.

The User Intelligence Group (UIG) is responsible for developing the specification.

Given that the structure and membership of any UIG varies significantly from exercise to exercise, you should ensure that other end users, stakeholders and technical specialists are consulted where appropriate. Part of the role of the UIG is to challenge accepted thinking. At the specification stage, the UIG should explore opportunities to include economic development and sustainability considerations.

A good specification is created through the planning and research undertaken before writing begins and it is essential that you allow sufficient time to create the specification.

It is useful to discuss the specification with a range of potential tenderers during its development. This must be done in a fair and transparent manner to avoid distorting competition and/or giving any potential tenderer an advantage. Care must be taken to avoid unfairness, but also the impression of unfairness, to some tenderers. Under no circumstances should any commitments be made during this process.

Following marketplace discussions, be careful that a supplier’s innovative ideas and approaches are not disclosed during the specification development.  Such innovations may provide a supplier with a competitive edge e.g. proprietary methods or Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).

You should consider how you can encourage the production of innovative goods and services, which will assist the Organisation to deliver evolving policies and strategies e.g. sustainable low carbon products.

As with all aspects of the Procurement Journey, the activities at this stage must be carried out in a carefully managed manner that supports the Principles of Procurement. 

Suppliers should not experience unnecessary costs through casual bid enquiries. You are responsible for ensuring that best Value for Money is achieved through the procurement process.

The key criteria that the User Intelligence Group (UIG) needs to ensure are met when completing the specification are that:

• the requirements are complete and accurate;
• stakeholders needs are taken into account;
• future developments have been taken into account;
• there is consistency with the Organisations' requirements and objectives.  This includes: business case; the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, the Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016 and other relevant legislation; procurement and contracts strategies; sustainability objectives; and evaluation strategy; and
• a suitable risk assessment is completed to ensure that related risks are closed or managed.

Once a contract is awarded, the scope to make changes to the specification is very limited.  For example asking the contractor to deliver more or less than was specified at the time of tendering.

Any such changes may be challenged in the Courts. If the supplier cannot deliver in line with the requirements in the original contract (perhaps due to specification omissions or errors), the contract may have to be terminated and a new procurement undertaken.

You may authorise or require variants on the contract requirements, as long as it has been specified in the Contract Notice. 

The Procurement Documents must set out the minimum requirements and how any variant will be evaluated. Variants cannot be considered unless this has been done, they are linked to the subject matter and they meet the minimum requirements.

Where it is relevant, you should also consider whether to allow bidders to set out different TUPE scenarios within their bids. If you elect to include this in your tender, you should provide clear directions to tenderers to ensure that bids can be compared on a like-for-like basis.

All variant bids must be evaluated using the same criteria as the standard bids and compared on a like-for-like basis.

You can conduct market consultation. This will help you prepare both the procurement itself and the market for the coming process. 

To undertake market consultation you can speak with independent experts, regulatory authorities or suppliers to the market. You can then use any advice received in the planning and execution of your procurement process.

Organisation can issue a Prior Information Notice (PIN) as a means to seek information from suppliers to the market when developing a procurement.

You must make sure there is no distortion of competition and no negative effect on the principles of non-discrimination and transparency. 

All suppliers / bidders who join the process at a later date must be provided with the same information as those who engaged prior to the tender.  This will ensure a fair process.

The Public Sector Equality Duty requires organisations to assess new or revised policies and practices to evaluate how they will impact people with different protected characteristics. 

You must take into account the three needs of the Public Sector Equality Duty, to:

• eliminate discrimination;
• advance equality of opportunity; and
• foster good relations between people with different protected characteristics.

The protected characteristics are:

You should also integrate human rights into your impact assessments to help suppliers meet their obligations under the Human Rights Act 1998. Further information  on how to conduct equality impact assessments is available on the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) website.

The technical specification can specify whether the transfer of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) will be required.

This is important as suppliers are likely to find the contract much less attractive if  any intellectual property  they create would be the property of the buying organisation. This may be an unnecessary barrier to competition to some suppliers who supply similar goods or services to other customers.   The Organisation, however, may legitimately ask for access to intellectual property which they require.

You can apply a number of different costing models such as Whole Life Costing or Life Cycle Costing, as part of the specification and subsequent evaluation. 

Further information on the costing models can be found in Additional Resources

Focuses on social and environmental impact rather than cost. It helps 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 you to build end-of-life management requirements into successful contractor performance clauses and your own internal management procedures.

Please note: Life Cycle Impact Mapping can be used alongside Life Cycle Costing as part of the procurement process.

If you purchase goods or services with specific environmental, social or other characteristics, labels can be used as a means of proof.  The label can show that the supplied goods or services correspond to the required characteristics. For example, Fair Trade addresses workforce issues and is provided by the Fair Trade Foundation.

To use this approach it is necessary to meet the following criteria:

• the labels can only concern criteria that are linked to the subject matter of the contract.  These must be appropriate to define characteristics of the supplies or services;
• they have to be based on objective and non-discriminatory criteria;
• the label itself is established in an open and transparent procedure. It can be accessible to all interested parties; and
• the label requirements are set by a third party over which no potential bidder has decisive influence

It is more proportionate for you to specify which label requirements bidders need to meet for you, rather than using a broad “all applies” basis.  This approach will reduce the burden on bidders and could also expand the number of capable bidders for your process.

Equivalent labels must be accepted if the bidder can show it has not been possible to obtain either the label or other equivalents, through no fault of its own.  You must accept other appropriate means of proof.

Samples or patterns may be issued or requested from bidders when you cannot produce a detailed description of the requirement.  It is important not to request anything that is not going to be core to the evaluation and not to put bidders under financial or operational pressure to provide samples.

If you request samples and you rely on these for quality assessment as part of the tender a "sealed sample" must be kept for later comparison with the products supplied.

Samples, patterns and drawings may also form part of a design specification.

Any samples provided by bidders that are no longer required should be returned to the bidder.

Care should be taken that copyright is not breached when using samples, patterns etc. for specification purposes. Consideration needs to be given to the Intellectual Property Rights of the bidders.

It is very important that you state clearly as part of the tender documents how the samples and any other provisions from the bidders will be used as part of the tender evaluation and indeed any subsequent contract management.

Simplification and variety reduction techniques can help in reducing costs and in obtaining better Value for Money (VFM).

Specification simplification and variety reduction involves removing design complexities. For example, by removing different design types, sizes, grades etc. of products.

At its simplest this might be seen as the reduction in the:

• number of item colours purchased; or
• sizes of envelopes purchased and kept in stock

 This can be a valuable tool when creating a specification for large collaborative procurements.

You must consider how the contract quality, sustainability and performance of goods and services will be measured as you develop your specification, especially an output specification.

These factors should be reflected in the Management Information (MI) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that you require from your supplier(s).  MI and KPI requirements should be included in your ITT and Terms and Conditions.

It is also best practice  that suppliers are contractually required to provide line item spend detail as part of their contract support, and this should be communicated as part of the tender documentation.

Demand should be regularly assessed. In some business areas internal customers or budget holders may under or over specify e.g for consultancy services, specifying a Partner when an Associate could deliver the brief: where they are suitable and can deliver at less than half the day rate. It could be more cost effective to have a fixed term appointment than having an interim who stays in place for much longer than the initial contracted period.

In order to avoid scope creep, it is essential to ensure that a robust scoping process is undertaken at the earliest opportunity. Otherwise a supplier may offer additional services which are not required. Supplier-led scope creep can occur and should be demand managed. An example is an IT project aimed at buying a records management system which links, shares and allows the updating of records. If a project like this is not fully scoped and requirements understood early on, suppliers may exploit planning gaps. The supplier may add additional products or services as a 'problem resolution tool'. This would increase the scope, cost and timescales of the initial project. 

Whilst all the guidance in this station should be considered when procuring Care and Support Services specific Care and Support Services guidance can be found in Developing the Service Specification and the Procurement of care and support services: best practice guidance.

Consider how relevant Rights of the Child provisions are to the specification and ensure inclusion when relevant and proportionate in accordance with UNCRC guidance.