Procure
Evaluating bidder compliance with exclusion grounds and selecting suitable suppliers for the contract.
Remember to adapt activities to your local context, and always take approaches that are proportionate to the value, risk, complexity and profile of your requirements.
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1
Terms and Conditions.
Each organisation should have its own specific Terms and Conditions (T&Cs), tailored to its needs and the nature of each procurement. Legal and procurement teams play a key role in determining the appropriate T&Cs. Framework agreements and their call-off contracts, and model public sector contracts, provide predefined T&Cs that can in part be configured to suit local needs.
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2
Effective quotation and tendering processes.
Using platforms like Sell2Wales, particularly the Quick Quote feature, is recommended for securing quotation bids. It’s important to provide clarifications to all bidders equally to ensure fairness and transparency.
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3
Governing quotation and tender responses.
All procurements should be managed in accordance with your organisation’s governance policies. This includes the use of specific templates for evaluation and the formal recording of responses.
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4
Contract award communication.
The awarding of contracts must be communicated in writing, both to the successful and unsuccessful bidders. This process includes providing feedback to bidders who request it. Be mindful that, for above threshold procurements, processes such as award communication are governed by the regulations.
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5
Transition to contract award
After notifying all relevant parties of the procurement outcome, your intention to award and moving beyond the ‘standstill’ period where required, a formal contract will be entered into. This stage involves ensuring all necessary documentation and feedback have been provided, and mobilising for commencement of contract.
5 things to know
Getting started
What to think about first
This stage of the procurement journey will typically include:
- Developing and finalising your procurement pack.
- Advertising the opportunity.
- Engaging with suppliers.
- Applying exclusions and selection criteria.
- Evaluating tenders.
- Notifying bidders of the procurement outcome.
- Awarding, signing and publishing contracts.
The time and effort you invested during the ‘Plan’ and ‘Define’ stages of the procurement journey will have helped you draft your procurement documentation. At a minimum, you should prepare:
- The Invitation to Tender (ITT) including instructions to bidders.
- The Specification of Requirements.
- Pricing and quality response templates.
- The draft contract.
Clear specifications are essential for fair and inclusive market engagement. They help bidders decide if they want to participate and enable you to compare their prices with your cost expectations. Without this clarity, you risk not achieving your desired outcomes within your budget or, in the worst case scenario, a failed procurement.
Your procurement pack should have been developed collaboratively with your stakeholders, and with involvement from relevant subject matter experts (e.g. cyber security specialists, human resources, finance and others) depending on the nature of your requirements.
To finalise your procurement pack, ensure it’s been peer reviewed and has been signed off through your organisation’s governance arrangements. With that done, you’re now ready to formally start your procurement process.
If you’re planning to use an existing framework agreement, dynamic purchasing system (DPS) or dynamic market, you’ll need to invite all potential suppliers available through these and any relevant lots, to bid for your opportunity.
If you are carrying out any other procedure that is not through a framework agreement, DPS or dynamic market, you will need to publish the ITT pack on Sell2Wales. Under the Procurement Act 2023, some below threshold procurement should also be published (these are notifiable below threshold procurements). All procurements that are £30,000 or above must be published on Sell2Wales.
Familiarise yourself with the time limits the tender should be live for. These are described in the regulations (Procurement Act 2023 and Procurement (Wales) Regulations 2024). In any case, the tender timelines should be fair and proportionate, with consideration of making it easier for SMEs to bid.
Useful Resources:
Procurement Act 2023 guidance: below-threshold contracts – devolved Welsh Authorities
Whilst the ITT is live, all engagement with suppliers (or bidders) should be recorded using a Clarification Questions log. At this point, contracting authorities should avoid speaking to suppliers/ bidders directly to ensure that information is not passed on that may advantage them or disadvantage other bidders. Remember, equal treatment is an important general principle of law in the public procurement context.
The selection stage is used to assess bidders’ suitability to carry out what you require in your contract, so you’re assuring yourself of their solvency and competency. This includes their economic and financial standing, and their technical and professional ability based on past experience.
If you’re planning to use an existing framework agreement, DPS or dynamic market, where a two-stage further competition is allowed, you’ll shortlist bidders to find the ones most suitable for your procurement using a capability assessment. Only bidders on the shortlist will be invited to bid for your opportunity.
Otherwise, the Procurement Specific Questionnaire (PSQ) can be used to apply grounds for excluding bidders and selecting suitable bidders to then evaluate their tenders.
Before sending the PSQ, or as part of the PSQ, you should ensure that the supplier has registered on the Central Digital Platform (this is an enhanced version of the previous Find a Tender Service), that the supplier has submitted up-to-date information on the CDP and the supplier provides that information to you during a tender exercise.
Useful Resources:
It is not good practice to encourage bidders to compete on price alone as it can create an unhealthy market for your goods and services. For above threshold procurements, under the Procurement Act 2023, evaluation of bidders should be on the basis of most advantageous tender (MAT). This means that elements of price (or whole life costs), quality and social value all play an important role in the final score of each bidder. The purpose of identifying MAT is not to find the cheapest bidder but one who can deliver the best value for money.
Social value questions to bidders can include tackling inequality, helping disadvantaged communities, helping SMEs through use in the supply chains, supporting mental health of staff, amongst others. In Wales, social value should align to the 7 goals, 5 ways of working and 4 lenses of value contained within the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, the Community Benefits Policy and other relevant policies such as Welsh Procurement Policy Note WPPN 12/21: Decarbonisation through procurement – Addressing CO2e in supply chains. You should also have consideration for Welsh Procurement Policy Note WPPN 06/21: Decarbonisation through procurement – Taking account of Carbon Reduction Plans which states that you should ask suppliers to provide a Carbon Reduction plan as part of their bid for contracts over £6,000,000 (including VAT).
Remember that bidders should not only be evaluated on quality (including social value) and price (or whole life costs, including potential exit costs), but also, in some cases, their economic and financial standing.
Under the Procurement Act 2023, following a competitive tender process, you should provide an assessment summary to the bidders. This should be done before you publish a contract award notice on Sell2Wales. You no longer need to provide relative advantages and disadvantages of the unsuccessful bidder’s response against that of the successful bidder (as was required under the Public Contracting Regulations 2015). Now you should issue an assessment summary to unsuccessful suppliers which must include a copy of the information provided to the successful supplier (redacted for confidentiality where required) explaining how its tender scored against each of the criteria. A supplier reading the two sets of information alongside each other will be able to ascertain the relative advantages.
The assessment summary should be as clear and detailed as possible to ensure that the bidder clearly understands where they did not meet the requirements. This is important because:
Good feedback allows suppliers to improve their tenders in the future (especially helping SMEs and voluntary, community and social enterprises); and
Accurate feedback can protect your organisation from being legally challenged following a procurement process.
If you have the capacity, it is good practice to offer verbal feedback sessions to the unsuccessful bidders where they can understand your feedback better and ask questions.
Useful Resources:
Once your evaluation is complete, you have moderated the scores, sent out the letters notifying bidders of the tender outcome, and you published the award notice you should observe a standstill period. Standstill periods of 8 working days, beginning with the day the contract award notice is published, are required for above threshold procurements that are covered by the Procurement Act 2023.
Regulations 28-31 of the Procurement (Wales) Regulations 2024 set out what needs to be included in the contract award notice:
Regulation 28: Contract award notices except those published by private utilities
Regulation 29: Contract award notices published by private utilities
Regulation 30: Contract award notices published by private utilities: direct awards
Regulation 31: Contract award notices published by private utilities: frameworks
Useful Resources:
Procurement Act 2023 guidance: contract award notices and standstill
CIPS
CIPS Procurement and Supply Cycle
The ‘Procurement and Supply Cycle’ developed by the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) includes 13 steps to guide you through the procurement process for goods and services.
You will have already completed activities that are consistent with steps 1 to 6 during the ‘Plan’ and ‘Define’ stages of the procurement journey.
The following steps from the CIPS ‘Procurement and Supply Cycle’ relate most closely to the ‘Procure’ stage of the procurement journey:
- Issue Tender Documents;
- Bid and Tender Evaluation and Validation; and
- Contract Award and Implementation.
Net Zero
The quality of your research, engagement, analysis and preparations at the ‘Plan’ and ‘Define’ stages, will pay dividends when it comes to procurement
- Preparing clear document packs focused on addressing CO2e in supply chains, is expected to yield high-quality responses from suppliers who understand and align with the Wellbeing Goals. The responses should clearly indicate how suppliers can contribute to these objectives. Such preparation helps the tender team to effectively evaluate bids, identifying those that best meet the requirements for reducing CO2e in supply chains. This approach sets the stage for successful contract execution, centring on net zero and broader wellbeing impacts.
- When awarding contracts, providing constructive feedback to unsuccessful bidders is crucial. The regulations state specifically what should be included within ‘intention to award’ letters. Such feedback enhances the quality of goods and services in the Welsh public sector and an improved quality of goods and services might encompass innovative ways of reducing CO2e emissions; supporting the circular economy by maximising resource use and minimising waste; and fostering resilient local economies – emphasising good employment and community wealth-building. This approach is integral to the foundational economy.
Resources
We’ve brought together a range of resources to support you at each stage of your procurement journey.
Visit the links below to view the resources relate to this stage.
