Tag: council contracts

Public Sector Round-Up 30.04.21

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Weekly UK tender publishing update

1,042

685

357

Total UK
Tenders		Low Value
Tenders		High Value
Tenders

122

55

574

Frameworks
or DPS 		Prior Information
Notices		High Value
Award Notices
Tender notices published in the UK between 23.04.21 & 29.04.21

In the news this week

Crown Commercial Service extends G-Cloud 12 to 2022
The G-Cloud 12 framework makes it easier for public buyers to access cloud computing solutions, and had the original end date of 27 September 2021 – which has now been extended for a further 12 months. This extension could allow more tech suppliers to enter the market and be considered for upcoming opportunities.
To start searching for related public contacts, please visit our category search here.

Proactis secures over £2 million worth of contracts
E-procurement specialists Proactis have secured more than £2m worth of contract renewals and new business over the last few months. 

Falkirk Council becomes ‘first’ Scottish local authority to ditch analogue telecare
Falkirk Council has become the ‘first’ local authority in Scotland to go live with a fully digital telecare service – four years before a national deadline that will see traditional analogue services switched off.

Westminster becomes ‘UK’s first’ local authority to install 1k EV charge points
Westminster has set itself at the forefront of the country’s electric vehicle (EV) revolution, with the announcement it has reached the milestone of 1,000 EV charge point installations – with a further 500 to be delivered by the first quarter of next year.
EV charge points are a growing source of opportunities with the public sector, to see what opportunities are available start searching at www.tendersdirect.co.uk

£1.8bn funding to keep schools in top condition
Every school in England will be able to access a share of almost £1.8bn this year to help keep their buildings in the best possible condition. That’s a lot of funding which will result in the creation of countless opportunities for work across England.

Do you know know how buyers evaluate your bids?
In his latest blog ‘What criteria do buyers use to evaluate bids?‘, Andrew Watson looks at how buyers score bids and choose who they will work with.
This is a great article if you would like a better understanding the considerations you should make when bidding for work with the public sector

Top high value contract award notices

Title: United Kingdom-Worcester: Security services
Short description: Three contracts for manned guarding and concierge services, one of the contracts also covers key holding and waking watch services.
Published By: Sanctuary Housing Association
Date Published: 23 April 2021
Framework/DPS: No
Value excluding VAT: £41,000,000.00
Number of tenders received, lot 1: 4
Number of tenders received, lot 2: 9
Number of tenders received, lot 3: 2
Contractors: Kingdom Security Ltd | G4S SECURE SOLUTIONS (UK) LIMITED
View full notice on Tenders Direct

Title: United Kingdom-Glasgow: Construction work for highways, roads
Short description: Various ancillary works in the vicinity of the A9 between Perth and Inverness, in advance of the A9 Dualling Schemes.
Published By: Transport Scotland
Date Published: 26 April 2021
Framework/DPS: Yes
Value excluding VAT: £10,000,000.00
Number of tenders received, lot 1: 7
Number of tenders received, lot 2: 6
Number of tenders received, lot 3: 2
Contractors: Story Contracting Ltd | I & H Brown Ltd | McGowan Environmental Engineering Ltd | RJ McLeod (Contractors) Ltd | Wills Bros Civil Engineering Ltd | Roberston Construction Group Ltd | John Paul Construction | Morrison Construction
View full notice on Tenders Direct

Title: United Kingdom-London: Advertising and marketing services
Short description: Various lots under the marketing framework to enter into call-off agreements to provide services in one or more specified lots as required by Peabody.
Published by: Peabody Trust
Date Published: 26 April 2021
Framework/DPS: No
Value excluding VAT: £6,750,000.00
Number of tenders received, lot 1: 64
Number of tenders received, lot 2: 3
Number of tenders received, lot 3: 26
Number of tenders received, lot 4: 18
Number of tenders received, lot 5: 20
Number of tenders received, lot 6: 12
Number of tenders received, lot 7: 25
Number of tenders received, lot 8: 17
Number of tenders received, lot 9: 56
Contractors: Anatomy Brands Ltd | Aylesworth Fleming Ltd | Bandstand UK Ltd | Bell Integrated Communications Ltd | DS.Emotion Ltd | Four Communications Group | Fresh Lemon Ltd | Full Communications | HTA Design LLP | MakingGiants Ltd | Moyo Creative Ltd | Philosophy Design | Puttock Brown Ltd | Sesame Design Ltd | Strudel London Ltd | Think BDW Ltd | Wordsearch Communications Ltd | Hobs Reprographics | TPA Modelmakers Ltd | Ademchic Ltd | Bureau Workspace Ltd | Captivate Studio Ltd | F10 Studios | Ove Arup and Partners Ltd | River Film Communication Ltd | Service Graphics (a trading division of Paragon Group UK Ltd) | Tidywork Studio | Uniform Communications Ltd | Dapa Inc Ltd | Focus Experiential Ltd | Forward Fold Ltd | Studio Morton Ltd | Suna Interior Design Ltd | The Six Collective | Vesta | Core Media Services UK Ltd | DMA Signs Ltd | Lavastar Signs Ltd | Macro Art | Reade Signs Ltd | Darwin Press Ltd | Digitronix Ltd | Scanplus Ltd | Andrew Hendry Photographer | David Tett Photography Ltd | Full Communications | Tidywork Studio | Dynomite Productions Ltd | In The Dark Productions Ltd | JonesMillbank | Pinzutu FIlms
View full notice on Tenders Direct

This course is perfect for individuals who are comfortable with the tendering process but are looking to understand how to maximise their scores on social value answers in tendering.

Social value answers in tenders are increasingly being allocated higher weightings, and this course will help you improve your answers by helping you achieve the following:

◆ Understand what buying authorities mean by ‘social value’
◆ Learn why social value is included in tenders
◆ Understand how to measure and deliver social value
◆ Understand the different ways in which social value can be assessed in tenders
◆ Understand how to best answer social value questions

Thursday 24 June | 13:00 – 16:30 | Full course details

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Tenders Direct is the UK’s most accurate tender alert service. We are the only service to guarantee that with us – you’ll never miss a tender.

For more information about we can help you find and win more work in the public sector, please visit www.tendersdirect.co.uk or call us on 0800 222 9009.

What criteria do buyers use to evaluate bids?

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When you’re considering whether to bid for a piece of work in the public sector there are many considerations to be made. One of the most critical questions you have to answer is:

How will the buyer be evaluating the bids and choosing who to work with? 

If you’ve a good understanding of the competitive landscape and where you stand within it, this question could be the difference between deciding to bid or not. 

Within the public sector, any published tender you look at will have clearly defined criteria against which the buyer will be assessing responses. 

For the most basic level of consideration, your submission will be checked to make sure you have provided all requested information – provision of accounts, proof of insurance, all questions answered. This qualification section of the response usually results in companies being passed or failed (as opposed to being scored). It’s only after passing this stage that your proposal will actually be assessed and scored.  

The Scoring Stage

The scoring stage focuses on two components to evaluate your bids – Commercial (pricing) and Quality (which will often include Social Value). The importance of each component will be stated in the documents and varies from tender to tender – one submission could be 80% price, 20% quality whereas another could be 80% quality, 20% price. Your score for each component will be combined to provide your overall score, which will be compared against the other submissions. 

From this scoring, one or more bidders will be successful in either securing the work or gaining access to framework. 

How the pricing in your bid is evaluated 

There are different ways for price scoring to be calculated, and it will always be clearly stated in the document pack which method the buyer will be using. 

By far the most common way is for the prices of the bidders to be compared against each other and for the lowest overall price to be awarded the full allocation of marks.  The other bidders will be awarded marks in proportion to their price versus the lowest price.

Company 1 Company 2 Company 3 
Bid value £100,000  £116,279 £122,448 
Score 60% 52% 49% 
Calculation N/A (£100,000/£116,279)  
x 60% = 52% 		(£100,000/£122,448)  
x 60% = 49% 
Example: Commercial is worth 60% of tender 
In this example, the company with the lowest price will be awarded the highest score (60%) and the scores of the other companies will be a proportion of this. 

It’s worth noting that often there will be maximum price set by the buying authority and any bids that are over this won’t be considered. For some projects the authority has a pretty good idea on where costs should be and the maximum price will be set quite keenly. 

How the quality of your bid is evaluated 

Unlike price, quality is usually evaluated in absolute terms, meaning that each submission is assessed independently of the others. 

For quality, there will be number of questions each with its own weighting to reflect the importance of that answer.  

QuestionWeightingPossible
Scoring		Company
Score		% Score
120%0-555/5 x 20% = 20% 
220% 0-5 44/5 x 20% = 16% 
320% 0-5 33/5 x 20% = 12% 
420% 0-5 33/5 x 20% = 12% 
520% 0-5 55/5 x 20% = 20% 
Total––20/2580%
Weighted Total–––80% x 40% = 32%
Example: Overall quality is worth 40% of tender 
For each question you can be awarded a score of anywhere between 0-5, based on the quality of each answer and there are five questions in total.

How the overall score for your bid is calculated 

Once your price and quality score have been calculated they will be combined and the bidder(s) with the highest overall score will be the winner(s). 

Company 1 Company 2 Company 3
Commercial (Price) Score 60%52%49%
Quality Score 22%32%32%
Total 82%84%81%
Example: Total Scores 
In this example we tally the scores of our three companies. We can see that even though Company 1 has the best price, they were let down by the quality of their answers. The quality of the answers from Company 3 was on par with Company 2, however their pricing cost them the contract.  

What should I look out for when writing bids? 

From the tender documents provided, it should always be clear how the submissions will be assessed. You should always expect to see:
 
◆ Price weighting and criteria 
◆ Quality weighting and criteria 
◆ Number of suppliers that will be awarded 

From the first stages of planning you need to consider each of these factors – making sure the opportunity is viable, and that your approach to the bid reflects how it will be scored:   

◆ If the bid is very heavily weighted towards quality how much sense would it be to focus on a very low cost, low quality solution? 
◆ Can you meet the buyer’s criteria for an acceptable price? 
◆ Do you have quality advantages over your competitors that you can evidence for a tender that is heavily weighted towards quality? 

Bid writing support and training   

We have a range of other articles and resources which may be useful for helping you with your tender writing needs. You can find details of these below.
 
If you would like would like to have structured learning to develop your skills, we offer online training courses split over two half-days. We have courses for beginners as well as more advanced courses for experienced bidders. If you have already started a proposal for tender and are in need of support, we do also have consultants who can offer a wide range of support to help you get you bid in on time.

If you would like more information, please feel free to contact me directly or visit our Consultancy Services page. 
 
Andrew Watson 
Bid Consultancy and Training Manager 
Tel: 07384 818 704  
E-mail: andrew.watson@proactis.com  

The Tender Writing Process
A 9 step tender writing process detailing the most efficient way of planning your proposals.

Q: What are my chances
of winning a tender?
A lot of people have doubts about their chances of winning, and here we explore this is a very common question.  

Essential Bid Writing Skills
Details of the essential skills every
Bid Writer should have. 

Access our free 
on-demand webinars 
A library of our past webinar recording covering a wide range of topics for bid writers of all levels. 

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Tenders Direct is the UK’s most accurate tender alert service. We are the only service to guarantee that with us – you’ll never miss a tender.

For more information about we can help you find and win more work in the public sector, please visit www.tendersdirect.co.uk or call us on 0800 222 9009.

How do I find government contracts?

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The public sector is made up of numerous organisations run by the government – this includes local councils, emergency services, armed forces and the NHS. Each of these organisations relies on the private sector to supply them with a wide range of goods, works and services, and on average spends over £290 billion on procurement each year.

To ensure there is a competitive marketplace, contracts must be published publicly, and be accessible to any supplier. This means whenever a public body has a procurement need, they have to advertise the contract online using any of the numerous publishing platforms (also known as advertising portals) available to them – details of these can be found at the end of this post.

The Problem with Finding Tenders

You could try and search for notices yourself using the websites above, but due to the sheer number of sources, especially for low-value notices, it would take a significant amount of effort to find suitable notices.

Even if you did find notices this way, they might not actually be as relevant as you had hoped. This is because of CPV codes. There is a CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) code for every product or service, and while buyers should use them to let suppliers know what they are looking for, many notices are coded incorrectly. This means they won’t appear in searches and you could miss out on these opportunities.

However, Tenders Direct allows you to avoid these issues by sourcing and reviewing every UK and ROI notice, then making them available to you in one accurate and easy to search database.

Tenders Direct – How does it work? 

We are able to provide full coverage of every tender published in the UK and ROI thanks to our team of Sourcing Specialists, who scour every source to find every tender published. Our Classification Specialists then review each of these notices for accuracy, and re-classify them according to product, service and industry. This Peer Review Process not only ensures you have access to every tender published; it also eliminates irrelevance so you only ever see notices that match your search criteria.

To help you stay ahead of the competition and have more time to prepare your bids, our tender alert service eliminates the need for manual searches by notifying you as soon as relevant opportunities are published. Our Client Experience Managers work with you to learn about your business, identify your needs, and develop your unique alert profile – ensuring you receive notifications tailored specifically to your requirements.

With a Tenders Direct subscription, we guarantee you will never miss a tender. Visit our website for more information about our services, or call our New Business Executives on 0800 222 9009 to discuss your needs.

How Tenders Direct works
Discover how Tenders Direct can help you find and win public contracts.

See for yourself
Request a free sample tender alert direct to your inbox.

Tender Publishing Platforms UK 

Contracts Finder - for English contracts worth over £10,000 with the government and its agencies. 

Public Contracts Scotland – for all Scottish public procurement. 

Sell2Wales – for all Welsh public procurement.

eSourcing NI – for all public procurement in Northern Ireland.

Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) – for high-value tenders published in European Union countries.

Find a Tender – for all high-value notices published across the UK.

Public Buyer Specific – low-value tenders, which make up the majority of all public contracts, can be published on the buyer’s own website or through a third party service such as myTenders – meaning there are hundreds of sites used to publish notices. 

These posts may also be of interest

Why work with
the public sector? 
Our article looks at 6 reasons why you should do business with the Public Sector.

Differences between
the private and public sector 
This infographic looks at the different procurement processes.

What is
a public sector tender? 
An explanation of how tenders work and the different procedures they can use.  

Request a tailored
Market Overview
Discover what types of opportunities are available for your industry with a free Market Overview report.

Tenders Direct is the UK’s most accurate tender alert service. We are the only service to guarantee that with us – you’ll never miss a tender.

For more information about we can help you find and win more work in the public sector, please visit tendersdirect.co.uk or call us on 0800 222 9009.

6 reasons why you should do business with the Public Sector

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On average the UK Government spends £292 billion a year, more than a third of all public spending, on procuring goods, works and services from external suppliers. This money generates over 50,000 new business opportunities a year for many different industries.  

What is the Public Sector? 


The Public Sector is typically made up of not-for-profit organisations owned by central, national and local governments, for the benefit of their citizens. They cover areas such as defence, education, fire services, healthcare, police and refuse collection. 
 
As the public sector relies on public funding to make decisions, they are required to ensure their financial decisions are made respectfully, encourage free and open competition, achieve best value for money, and ultimately benefit the public. 

Reasons to tender for public sector work

  1. All contracts must be open and accessible – meaning no matter what size your business is, if you meet the criteria and can deliver the tender requirements, you have a fair chance of winning the work. This is different to private procurement where the buyer can choose who to inform of their procurement needs, and who to do business with.    
  1. The public sector wants to award work to SMEs – by 2022 the UK Government wants 33% of all public contracts to awarded to SMEs. SMEs make up 99% of all UK businesses and are vital for the economy.  
  1. 30 day payment period – all invoices for contracted work must be processed by public bodies within 30 days of receiving them, ensuring businesses get paid promptly. Lengthy payment periods can be an issue within the private sector, where larger businesses can dictate when they issue payment. 
  1. Transparent Tendering process – nothing is hidden in public procurement, decisions made are transparent, and suppliers will receive feedback if they did not win a contract. Private buyers do not have to make their processes public, and have no obligations to provide feedback to suppliers.  
  1. Most Economically Advantageous Tenders (MEAT) – is the chosen method of proposal assessment, meaning contract awards are not just based on price, and consider the wider aspects of tender submissions. Social Value is a major consideration in contract awards, and with the Procurement Policy Note – Taking Account of Social Value in the Award of Central Government Contracts, five key themes have been highlighted for central government contracts: COVID-19 recovery, tackling economic inequality, fighting climate change, equal opportunity, and wellbeing. 
  1. Continuously improving processes – to make bidding for work easier and less time consuming, the public sector continually work to improve their processes. Single Procurement Documents are a great example – where these are used, only the winning bidder needs to provide the required documents, saving you significant time and effort. 

Finding public Sector Work 

The public sector offers a reliable source of new business.   
 
From stationary to infrastructure and everything in between, the public sector needs suppliers like you. All notices must be publicly accessible online no matter the size, for any supplier to view and bid for.   
  
There are thousands of portals through which public bodies can publish their notices and you can spend a significant amount of time and effort trying to locate opportunities relevant to your business. Thankfully, Tenders Direct eliminates your need to search for tenders by collating every UK and ROI notice in one place, and alerting you to those relevant to your business.   
  
Tender Direct guarantees you will never miss a public sector notice.  
  
Request a demo today and discover all the opportunities you could be bidding for.  

Public Sector Round-Up 11.09.20

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In the news this week: £9.3m invested in council EV schemes, £12bn boost for affordable homes, and two e-scooter trials launched in York and West Midlands.
Our top OJEU notices for the week feature a diverse £30m NHS contract for hospitality, cleaning and administration services, a £6m contract for refuse collection vehicles and a £3.6m award for telematics services.
The top Prior information Notice of the week is a £1.2bn framework for the maintenance, repair and calibration of medical equipment.

UK tenders update

840

603

237

Total UK NoticesLow-Value NoticesOJEU Notices
Tender notices published in the UK between 04.09.20 & 11.09.20

Top OJEU contract award notices

Title: United Kingdom-London: Hotel, restaurant and retail trade services
Short description: To provide a range of services including: cleaning, catering, portering, security, pest control, window cleaning, linen and laundry, clinical and domestic waste and helpdesk to Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
Published By: Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Date Published: 08 September 2020
Framework/DPS: No
Value excluding VAT: £30,029,484.00
Number of tenders received: 1
Contractors: ISS Mediclean Ltd
View full award notice with your Tenders Direct login HERE

Title: United Kingdom-London: Telematics services
Short description: Contract award notice for the supply and installation of an integrated road vehicle telematics and dashboard camera system with associated services.
Published By: Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd
Date Published: 09 September 2020
Framework/DPS: Yes
Value excluding VAT: £3,683,220.00
Number of tenders received, lot 1: 5
Number of tenders received, lot 2: 2
Number of tenders received, lot 3: 2
Number of tenders received, lot 4: 3
Number of tenders received, lot 5: 6
Contractors: Masternaut Ltd | Company Watch Ltd |Condeco Ltd | Repstor Ltd | Resolve Systems LLC
View full award notice with your Tenders Direct login HERE

Title: United Kingdom-Bournemouth: Refuse-collection vehicles
Short description: The contract provides for the following:• 18 tonne RCV — diesel fuelled,• 26 tonne RCV — diesel fuelled,• 26 tonne RCV — zero emission (i.e. electric (EV) or hydrogen).
Published by: Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council
Date Published: 09 September 2020
Framework/DPS: No
Value excluding VAT: £6,028,113.00
Number of tenders received: 3
Contractors: Dennis Eagle Ltd
View full award notice with your Tenders Direct login HERE

In the news this week

Highways England invest £9.3m in council’s EV schemes
Highways England announced £9.3m this week to help businesses adopt electric vehicles. The fund allows local authorities to give businesses a 2 month trial of electric vehicles. The money for this comes from Highways England’s Designated Funds programme, which will invest around a billion pounds between 2020 and 2025 to benefit the public, economy and planet. With more and more focus on electric vehicles, funding towards similar EV projects (see e-scooter trials below) and charging points for them will become increasingly popular.

Jenrick unveils huge £12 billion boost for affordable homes
A massive investment of £12bn in affordable housing was announced this week, the largest single funding commitment to affordable housing in a decade. The programme will be delivered between 2021 to 2026, providing up to 180,000 new homes across England. Building homes is a priority for the government, and consideration has been made to ensure smaller developers access finance for new housing developments by boosting the Home Building Fund with an additional £450 million of investment.

Two major e-scooter trials launched in York and West Midlands
The public in York and the West Midlands have been given access to e-scooters this week as two e-scooter trials begin. The contract for the scooters belongs to Voi (a Swedish company) which has initially supplied a few hundred scooters, but over 10,000 are expected to be deployed during the trial – the results of which could create more opportunities in other regions for similar projects.

Stand out prior information notices

£1.2bn framework for the maintenance, repair and calibration of medical equipment
Maintenance Renewal PIN 2020 NHS Supply Chain seeks to establish a non-exclusive framework agreement for the supply to the NHS Supply chain customer base for the maintenance, repair and calibration of medical equipment. The purpose of this notice is to draw attention to a procurement that NHS Supply Chain intends to commence during the subsequent 12 months. The invitation to tender will be the subject of a separate notice and it is that notice to which potential suppliers will need to respond at the appropriate time.
View full prior information for free HERE


If you have questions, we have the answers.
Register for our lunchtime webinar and let our experts address your tendering queries. For more info and to register click here.

Tenders Direct is the UK’s most accurate tender alert service. We are the only service to guarantee that with us – you’ll never miss a tender.
Visit www.tendersdirect.co.uk to find out more.

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