Tag: tendering

Public Sector Construction – Getting better all the time

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The Public Sector is providing more and more contracts for Construction sector suppliers. Although times were tough for the industry following the recession, things have rebounded and opportunities have never looked better for suppliers and contractors working with the Public Sector. The future looks brighter still with this sector having a projected average growth of 2.6% from 2015-18.

Certain sub-sectors of construction have had significant increases over the past year. A 12% increase in road related tenders, 8% increase in new build tenders, 25% increase in architecture/design team tenders and the biggest increase is in the renewable energy sector (areas like solar power, wind power and geothermal) of around 35%.

With the High Speed 2 project, floods defence work, major road schemes across the UK, along with affordable housing and other projects it’s no surprise that things have rebounded in this sector.

Millstream has created an infographic on this to highlight the key facts and you can view this here: Construction Infographic

More than 4,000 private sector companies use Tenders Direct to find new business opportunities, of those over 950 are construction businesses, accounting for around 22% of the customer base. Tenders Direct work with thousands of public sector organisations in the UK, Ireland and Norway to publicise their contracts, allowing direct access to contracts that many are unaware of. The dedicated research team solely identify contracts and include them within the Tenders Direct database – many of these are smaller contracts that would not be published by the Official Journal (OJEU) or on any other central resource.

The Tenders Direct team, also manually categorise all tenders to ensure that only highly relevant opportunities are provided and therefore personalised to individual preferences and areas of specialism and are sent to subscribers every day.

To find out how Millstream can help you find opportunities in public sector construction, call 0800 270 0249 or visit www.millstream.eu

 

Pet Hates of Suppliers (What not to do if you are a buyer)

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A few months ago my colleague Cindy published a blog on the Pet Hates of Buyers which went through some of the main issues that buyers have had when dealing with suppliers. This blog will consider the other side of the coin and cover some of the pet hates that suppliers have when bidding for tenders.

Through my experience working in the Tenders Direct support team I have put together this blog from feedback that we have received from our customers and other external companies that are involved in public sector tendering.

The issues can be broken down into two main areas. Firstly all issues relating to the tendering process (planning, identifying the needs, market analysis and tendering) and secondly all issues that relate to the post tender activities (contract management, supplier relationship management and the actual performance of the contract). Continue reading “Pet Hates of Suppliers (What not to do if you are a buyer)”

Remember Remember Your Tenders in November!

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Alone with his thoughts in the dank cellar below the House of Lords, Guy Fawkes imagined the display of pageantry that would occur above him when King James I arrived later that day for the State Opening of Parliament. This war veteran from Yorkshire, however, had a very different spectacle in mind: the detonation of 36 barrels of gunpowder directly beneath the King’s feet. With James dead, Fawkes and his fellow conspirators hoped to instigate a popular uprising and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. He just had to remain undiscovered for a few more hours…

A noise… his heart skipped a beat. Footsteps!

It’s fascinating to think that the actions of a few individuals in the distant past can continue to influence our lives centuries later. In his moments of introspection in the cellar, Guy Fawkes probably didn’t imagine that his effigy would be burned as part of a widely recognised annual cultural event over four hundred years after his death; he surely wouldn’t have had the remotest idea that an extensive publicly funded supply chain would be required to make it happen!

Continue reading “Remember Remember Your Tenders in November!”

Your Rights as a Supplier

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The most common question that we get from Tenders Direct customers is: ‘What rights do we have once we put in a bid?’

The answer to that is dependent on what stage of the process the supplier is at and the rights for both stages are listed below:

For the PQQ

Questions should only be asked of your company and not your potential solution (It should be about selection of suppliers and not an evaluation of your product).

Buyers have a legal requirement to notify candidates eliminated at the PQQ stage “as soon as reasonably practicable”.

Continue reading “Your Rights as a Supplier”

The Mystery Shopper Service

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Bidding can be both pressurised and also rewarding for suppliers to the public sector. There are many concerns for suppliers during this time such as completing all the relevant documents to meet the deadline, getting adequate responses from the buyers on the Q&A or that the process is being run fairly.  Poor procurement practice by the buyers may go unnoticed under these circumstances and many suppliers are reticent to raise a challenge and risk future contract opportunities. So what happens when you realise there are potential issues? The Mystery Shopper Service offers a solution to this problem.

A Brief Overview

The Mystery Shopper Service aims to tackle any concerns suppliers (particularly SMEs) may have regarding poorly conducted procurement processes which they have been part of on behalf of the suppliers. The service welcomes questions at any stage of the Continue reading “The Mystery Shopper Service”

Little fish in a bid pond? How SMEs can break into public sector procurement.

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A lot of potential suppliers to the public sector are put off by the amount of work it takes to become tender ready and what seems to be a chicken and egg situation where you need references to pass the PQQ (selection) stage but can’t get references until you win a contract!

The changes to the procurement regulations this year have made in roads to this situation with the abolition of PQQs for below threshold contracts and the removal of the burden of proof for above threshold contracts but there are a number of steps SMEs (and all organisations new to public sector tendering) can take to get a foot in the door and start supplying to the public sector. Continue reading “Little fish in a bid pond? How SMEs can break into public sector procurement.”

2015 Procurement Regulations – Changes to the ITT stage – What Suppliers Need to Know.

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Following on from our recent blog regarding the changes to the PQQ stage in the new 2015 Procurement Regulations we are going to look at what has changed at the ITT stage and what suppliers need to be aware of when tendering to the public sector.

The most important changes to the ITT stage for suppliers are:

1) There is now greater clarity regarding the rules on social and environmental aspects being taken into account in tenders meaning that:

  • social aspects can now also be taken into account in certain circumstances (in addition to environmental aspects which have previously been allowed);
  • contracting authorities can require certification/labels or other equivalent evidence of social/environmental characteristics, further facilitating procurement of contracts with social/environmental objectives;
  • contracting authorities can refer to factors directly linked to the production process.

The caveat to this is that any factors taken into account must be reasonably achievable for all suppliers so as not to favour larger companies or specific methodologies. We would encourage suppliers to keep a check on your key buyers to see what policies they have in these areas and how they are likely to implement these new rules. For example do they have a big drive on apprenticeships or carbon emissions you could support them on? In general it would be a good idea to start gathering data, case studies and evidence of your company’s positive social and environmental impacts to use in your responses going forward as the level of detail asked for in these questions is only going to increase.

2) Full life-cycle costing can be taken into account when awarding contracts; this could encourage more sustainable and/or better value procurement which will hopefully save money for tax payers in the long term. Continue reading “2015 Procurement Regulations – Changes to the ITT stage – What Suppliers Need to Know.”

Solar Power Tenders – Summer Must be on It’s Way!

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Did you know: 1 University, 2 Housing Associations and 3 Councils are installing up to 15k Solar Panels over the next 3 years. And that is just the tenders for one week! Someone out there must be predicting a scorcher this summer!

It is so nice to see the Public Sector looking for alternative means of energy, after all it was in 1997 (Kyoto Protocol) the UK Government promised to reduce greenhouse gases by 12.5% by 2008 to 2012. Last year the UK Government vowed its ‘greenest year ever’ and promised central government would reduce its carbon emissions by 10% within 12 months  60.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases are created by the UK each year and the Public Sector is only responsible for 3%. That is any easy enough target to reduce, only 5.7 million tonnes!

See tips for suppliers after the jump…..>

European Commission investigates Glasgow Housing Association’s failure to openly tender

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Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) is a private not-for-profit company created by the Scottish Government for the purpose of owning and managing Glasgow’s social housing stock. The housing stock, of approximately 81,000 houses and flats, was previously owned by the Glasgow City Council.

Following a poll of the Council’s tenants, the vast majority of their social housing was transferred to the ownership of the Glasgow Housing Association. The transfer was mired in controversy at the time, there was a strong No campaign backed by the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) and many commentators doubted that there was a genuine desire on the part of the tenants to transfer to another landlord. However, a condition of having Glasgow’s housing debt written off was a transfer whole stock. This was initially going to be to one landlord, however, the Scottish Government intervened and introduced the concept of Second Stage Transfer (SST) to smaller Housing Associations over time.

Taroub Zahran, the Chief Executive of Glasgow Housing Association, resigned from her position at the end of Taroub Zahran Former Chief Executive - Glasgow Housing AssociationSeptember after what was believed to have been disagreements with the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council over the slow speed of stock transfer.

A total of 322 tenants in Glasgow transferred to a new landlord at the end of July following the transfer of homes from Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) to two community-based housing associations under the Second Stage Transfer process.

Provanhall Housing Association took control of 195 homes, and another 127 houses in Hyndland were transferred to Glasgow West Housing Association.

Provanhall and Glasgow West join Shettleston, Ardenglen, Cassiltoun and Parkhead housing associations which took ownership of GHA homes in March this year.

A further 21 Local Housing Organisations who currently manage approximately 19,000 houses on behalf of GHA are still progressing through the various stages of the SST process. Ballots for a further four potential transfers are planned for this calendar year, with transfer potentially by the end of the financial year.

The European Commission, who will have begun their investigation following a complaint, has asked the UK Government to provide further information on how these contracts were awarded as it believes that they were public service contracts and as such should have been awarded on the basis of an open and transparent tendering process. If the European Commission is correct that no open tendering process was conducted, the UK will have failed to fulfill its obligations under the Public Procurement Directive 2004/18/EC.

The penalty for failing to fulfill such obligations is often simply that the relevant member state has to demonstrate that it has taken measures to rectify the situation and to prevent a future re-occurrence. Although sometimes, if it is not satisfied with the action that has been taken, the Commission will ask the European Court of Justice to impose a financial penalty.

In 2004 the Commission sought to impose daily fines against Germany for two long term (30 years) waste contracts that had not been correctly tendered.The fines sought were €31,680 per day for the City of Bockhorn contract and €126,720 per day for the City of Brunswick contract, which would be payable until the illegal contracts had been cancelled. That’s €58 million per year for 30 years!

The German government were in a bit of a sticky situation here, as it was the City authorities that had entered into the contracts and so the Government had no direct authority. Fortunately they managed to negotiate an agreement annulling the contracts.

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