The exclusion process involves evaluating whether the bidder has committed any offences that would lead them to be excluded from the bidding process.
The exclusion questions you can ask are split into two types:
It is considered best practice to ask bidders both types of questions in Route 3 procurement exercises.
The table below provides an overview of both types of exclusion criteria.
|
Exclusion Criteria in Route 3 Procurement Exercises |
Must ask | May ask |
Self-Cleansing Applies |
| Criminal Convictions |
|
|
|
| Blacklisting |
|
|
|
|
Tax and Social Security Breach (Binding decision - judicial or administrative)* |
|
|
|
| Tax and Social Security (Decision by any other means)* |
|
||
|
Environmental, Social and Labour Law |
|
|
|
| Bankruptcy and Insolvency |
|
|
|
| Grave Professional Misconduct |
|
|
|
| Conflict of Interest |
|
|
|
| Distortion of Competition |
|
|
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| Contract Deficiencies |
|
|
|
| Misrepresentation |
|
|
|
| Unduly Influence |
|
|
*In the case of tax and social security breaches, where self-cleansing does not apply, the bidder should not be excluded if they:
The bidder 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 they have given is sufficient to demonstrate reliability, you should not exclude the bidder from the procurement procedure on those grounds.
The bidder must satisfy that it has:
In the case of tax and social security breaches, the bidder should not be excluded if they have fulfilled their obligations by paying or have entered into a binding agreement with the view to paying monies, due or the obligation to repay otherwise ceases.
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 insufficient to demonstrate reliability, you must provide them with a statement outlining the reasons for the decision. This must be provided in writing as soon as is reasonably practical to allow the bidder to understand why the self-cleansing measures they have taken are insufficient.
Questions relating to exclusion grounds are contained in the SPD. You must use the SPD for all Route 3 procurements. More information on the SPD and the Standardised Statements is contained in the SPD station.
A document containing a set of "standardised statements" has been developed to support you in explaining the exclusion criteria to bidders. Within the standardised statement document, is information that can be added to your contract notice in section II.2.14 (Additional Information) The Standardised Statements document can be found at the bottom of the page.
Please note that if you use the online SPD module on PCS, there is no need to add information on the Exclusion Grounds to the Contract Notice as they are automatically added to the module.
The buyer must ask the bidder questions relating to criminal convictions and blacklisting in all Route 3 procurement exercises. If the bidder confirms they have taken part in these activities, they must be excluded from the process if they have not taken sufficient self-cleansing actions.
These are contained in regulation 58(1) and (3) of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.
Buyers must ask if a bidder has been convicted by final judgement of one of the criminal offences contained in the relevant regulations.
This includes:
Buyers must ask if a bidder has taken part in blacklisting activities.
Blacklisting is the practice of systematically denying individuals employment who would otherwise be able to be employed.
Blacklisting is done on the basis of information, accurate or not, held in some type of database. The Scottish Government regards blacklisting or the compiling of a blacklist as totally unacceptable.
The Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010 provide rights for individuals if blacklisting results in refusal of employment, detriment, dismissal or redundancy.
The Scottish Government treats tax and social security obligations seriously.
Organisations must exclude bidders where they have been subject to a binding decision (judicial or administrative) which found a breach of legal obligations to pay tax or social security contributions. A judicial decision is one which is made by a court or tribunal. An administrative decision is one which is made by the relevant tax authority in the UK or in the country where the bidder is established.
In exceptional circumstances, you may disregard the mandatory exclusion grounds when selecting a bidder. This can only be done where there are overriding reasons relating to the public interest. This provision is known as derogation from the mandatory exclusion considerations. This allows buying organisations to respond to unforeseen emergency circumstances.
There is no definitive list of situations in which this derogation can be used, so any decision you make should be done carefully and on a case by case basis. Organisations should be able to demonstrate that the actual or potential harm is so great, that the public interest in using the derogation outweighs the public interest in excluding the bidder.
An example may be where urgently needed vaccines or emergency equipment can only be purchased from a bidder to whom one of the mandatory exclusion grounds otherwise applies.
Each situation must be judged individually, but the following situations are, on their own, unlikely to meet this test:
Organisations may exclude a bidder where the bidder has breached its tax or social security obligations and the decision has been reached by means other than a binding decision (judicial or administrative).
Buyers can request the following examples of evidence to understand a bidder’s breach in tax or social security obligations:
In the case of tax and social security breaches, the bidder should not be excluded if they have fulfilled their obligations by paying or have entered into a binding agreement with the view to paying the money due or the obligation to repay otherwise ceases.
Note – these examples relate to the UK tax regime, and there will be equivalents in other countries, which should be considered when relevant.
One of several discretionary grounds for exclusion relates to social, environmental and employment law obligations. These obligations include any relevant legislation, as well as relevant collective agreements and specific international agreements.
As these laws are wide ranging, you can focus on a specific area of law that bidders must take into account when making their self-declaration in respect of exclusion grounds. For example, breaches of employment and equality legislation.
Bidders may be excluded where your organisation can demonstrate that the bidder has breached any of these obligations. This exclusion ground is discretionary and it is therefore for your organisation to decide if exclusion is appropriate.
When determining whether to exclude a bidder on this basis, you should be proportionate in your decision, taking into account the size of the contracts, the relevance of the breach, and its impact on the operational and reputational risk to the delivery of the contract and reputational risk to the organisation.
Further information can be found in the Public Contact (Scotland) Regulations 2015 57 (2).
Where a bidder is bankrupt or subject to insolvency proceedings, you can choose whether to exclude them from the procurement exercise.
Potential evidence you could request to evaluate the situation include:
When considering whether to exclude such a bidder you should consider contract delivery potential risks, such as:
Additionally, you should take into account the potential benefits of awarding a contract to such a bidder. These can include:
Bidders may be excluded if they are guilty of grave professional misconduct, which renders its integrity questionable.
Further information can be found in The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, 58 (8) (c)
When determining whether to exclude a bidder on this basis, your organisation should be proportionate in its decision, taking into account the size of the contract, the relevance of the breach, and its impact on the operational and reputational risk to the delivery of the contract and reputational risk to the organisation.
Bidders may be excluded if a conflict of interest exists that cannot be effectively remedied by other less intrusive measures, and that may impact the procurement process.
Further information can be found in The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, 58 (8) (e)
When determining whether to exclude a bidder on this basis, your organisation should be proportionate in its decision, taking into account the size of the contract, the relevance of the breach, and its impact on the operational and reputational risk to the delivery of the contract and reputational risk to the organisation.
Bidders may be excluded if a distortion of competition arises from
Further information can be found in The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, 58 (8) (d) (f)
When determining whether to exclude a bidder on this basis, your organisation should be proportionate in its decision, taking into account the size of the contract, the relevance of the breach, and its impact on the operational and reputational risk to the delivery of the contract and reputational risk to the organisation.
Bidders may be excluded if they are found to have:
the bidder has:
Further information can be found in The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, 58 (8)(h)(i)
Bidders may be excluded if they have shown significant or persistent deficiencies in the performance of a substantive requirement under a prior public contractor or a prior concession contract which led to early termination of that prior contract, damages or other comparable sanctions.
Further information can be found in section 9 of The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 58(8)(g)
When determining whether to exclude a bidder on this basis your organisation should be proportionate in its decision, taking into account the size of the contract, the relevance of the breach, and its impact on the operational and reputational risk to the delivery of the contract and reputational risk to the organisation.
Bidders must not be excluded indefinitely from participating in procurement activity.
A bidder must only be excluded:
Organisations must consider how, in conducting a procurement, they can facilitate the involvement of small and medium enterprises, third sector bodies and supported businesses in that process. This can include the use of sub-contractors to support the delivery of the contract.
Organisations can, at their discretion, require verification of whether there are any grounds for the exclusion of any sub-contractor involved in the delivery. Where this information is sought the SPD must be used.
Where this verification shows that there are mandatory grounds for the exclusion of a sub-contractor, the organisation must require that they are replaced.
You should keep in mind that this only applies to sub-contractors upon who the main bidder is not relying on to meet the selection criteria of the contract.
Where there are discretionary grounds for the exclusion of a sub-contractor, the organisation can choose whether it should be substituted. Organisations must decide whether to apply discretionary exclusion grounds to sub-contractors involved in the contract delivery on a case by case basis, taking into account the various circumstances of the contract.
Exclusion grounds apply to a person who is:
In the Standardised Statement document, along with the selection statements, you can find two exclusion ground statements:
In the case of a Route 3 procurement, please make sure that you copy over the statement for an above threshold Contract Notice exclusion statement to the textbox in the Contract Notice under II.2.14 Additional Information. This will make sure that you have informed the bidders that you will apply mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds in the procurement exercise.
Please note that if you are using the online SPD module in PCS, there is no need to include this in the contract notice.
The mandatory exclusion grounds (regulation 58(1) and (3) of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015) must be applied to all procurements, and you can also choose to apply the discretionary exclusion grounds.
Exclusion statements should be put under II.2.14 Additional Information of the Social and other Specific Services Contract Notice or detailed in the online SPD Module on PCS if it is being used.
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An exit strategy is necessary to:
It should be a ‘front end’ activity i.e. considered when developing your commodity/service strategy.
Your exit strategy should be included in the Procurement Documents and contractual terms and conditions where possible. This may appear counterintuitive, but you need a strategy which is consistent with your overall sourcing strategy. Otherwise you risk being locked into an unsatisfactory contract. You may be forced to pay more to stop the contract to minimise operational impact.
Having an exit strategy in place at the start of a supplier relationship, means that any transfer requirements (e.g. intellectual property; systems access or handover process for delivery requirements etc.) will be included in the contract. This ensures minimum business and customer disruption if the relationship were terminated.
Please note: you cannot terminate a contract with the aim of avoiding procurement rule obligations.
Exit strategies should be reviewed annually, or when significant change occurs.
There are several considerations to be made when developing an exit strategy, including:
Below suggests some factors for consideration. This is not an exhaustive list as each contract / supplier relationship should be considered on its own merits.
An exit strategy should set your service requirements when the parties are transitioning out of the relationship. These requirements may include:
Data privacy and security are critical. The exit strategy should consider provision for:
Strict documentation and knowledge transfer contract requirements will be advantageous. Be sure to:
Transition, termination and timing are a key part of the financial aspects of an exit strategy. Be sure the contract:
An exit strategy should cover personnel issues, such as:
Your exit strategy must allow you to terminate a contract during its term where the following occur:
Regulation 73 of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 requires the above termination grounds to be included as a contract term. If they are not included, they are implied.
This guidance sets out the minimum administrative standards and procedures for managing medium and high-risk contracts within the Scottish public sector.
The purpose is to ensure that:
This guidance applies to:
This guidance applies post-award, from contract signature to contract close-out.
Responsible for day-to-day contract administration and record-keeping.
Key administrative responsibilities include:
Accountable for:
For medium and high-risk contracts (Routes 2 and 3), a complete contract file should be maintained.
Files must be:
Upon contract award, the following administrative actions must be completed:
For all formal contract meetings:
The contract administrator must:
Escalate unresolved or high-impact issues
More guidance on Risk Management can be found in Additional Resources
All changes must be administered formally.
The administrator must:
No informal or retrospective changes should be permitted.
For detailed guidance, please refer to the Variation/Extension/Amendments station.
Administrative controls must include:
For high-risk contracts, financial tracking should be updated regularly.
Contract administration should support:
Records must be:
The administrator should:
For detailed guidance, please refer to the Variation/Extension/Amendments station.
At contract end, the administrator must:
For detailed guidance, please refer to the Dispute Resolution / Termination / Contract Exit station.
Medium and high-risk (Route 2 and 3) contracts require:
These factors should be reflected in resource planning and workload models.
Checklist
| What you Need to Do | Points to Consider | Met? |
Administration of the contract is important
Contract administration is concerned with the mechanics of the relationship between the customer and provider.
Its importance should not be underestimated. Clear administrative procedures ensure that all parties to the contract understand who does what, when and how. | The elements that need managing are likely to include:
| |
Maintain the contract documentation. The contract will have to evolve to reflect changes in arrangements. Contract maintenance means keeping the documentation up to date and relevant to what is happening on the ground. Maintaining contract documentation is an important activity. | Establish procedures to keep contract documentation up-to-date (including how to store/archive documentation). Ensure all contract documents are consistent, and that all parties have the correct version. | |
Changes must be controlled.
Changes to services, procedures or contracts may have an effect on service delivery, performance, costs and on whether the contract represents value for money. The specification and administration of change control is an important area of contract administration. | Appropriate structures need to be in place with representatives from both customer and supplier management sides to review and authorise change requests.
Be careful that changes do not fall outside the scope of the original PCS advertisement and conflict with procurement regulations – seek advice if you are unsure.
It is particularly important that additional demands on the supplier should be carefully controlled.
Formal authorisation procedures will be required to ensure only those new requirements (that can be justified in business terms) are added to the service. | |
Make sure management understands what is happening.
Management reporting procedures ensure that information about contract problems reach those with power to act as soon as possible. | Requirements for service performance reports and management information should be built into the contract and confirmed at the tender stage.
Where possible, you should make use of your Organisation's own management information and performance measurement systems.
For many business managers a summary of the service they have received along with a note of exceptions is normally sufficient.
Information requirements may change over the life of a contract. | |
Blank rows are provided for your use e.g. to add additional checklist items.
A detailed Contract Administration Checklist document is available for you to download and use, the document can be found at the bottom of this page.
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This section outlines a number of activities and tools necessary to manage and improve suppliers’ performance.
You must be careful not to substantially modify the contract when considering some of the following.
The fundamental purpose of Contract and Supplier Management is to ensure that:
Anyone engaged in managing suppliers must read and fully understand the contract terms and conditions. This will ensure they are not at a disadvantage should any issues arise.
It is essential that your Organisation’s Contract Manager/ Contract Management Officer is engaged from the Develop Strategy stage early in the process and participates in the development of the terms & conditions.
For Care & Support Services please also read the "Additional Guidance when Reviewing a Care and Support Service" document which can be found at the bottom of this page.
Contract management arrangements should identify what happens when the contract is not being delivered as agreed or, the agreed quality standards are not being met.
MI is used to monitor the supplier's or contract's performance. It ensures management have the information necessary to make effective strategic and operational decisions.
It is important that your MI requirements are clearly defined and communicated to the supplier. The reporting arrangements can be included in your specification and/ or in the terms and conditions of the contract. Reporting arrangements must be fair and proportionate and not duplicate information already provided.
Your MI approach should minimise demands on suppliers for information about goods/ service delivery. The frequency and level of reporting should be informed by a risk assessment. Reporting may increase in certain circumstances, for example, if a complaint is made about service/ delivery.
For some specific services you should avoid duplicating information which is collected by and is available from regulatory bodies. This can be achieved through the development of Memorandum of Understanding and regular discussions between the Organisation and the regulatory bodies.
Contract Managers/ Contract Management Officers should present information gained through contract management in regular reports to senior managers. In order to fulfil their role, they should:
Further examples can be found in the "Management Information" document which can be found at the bottom of the page.
Sustainable Procurement outcomes, for example Fair Work Practices, must be an integral element of the contract and supplier management process. They should be included as a standard agenda item at supplier review meetings and considered alongside all other contract management matters.
It is important to ensure monitoring includes the use of any agency or sub-contractor workers throughout the duration of the contract. This will include any new members joining the workforce engaged on the contract's delivery.
Evidence should be sought from suppliers to demonstrate compliance with agreed contract conditions. This includes what the main contractor is doing to ensure Sustainable Procurement outcomes, such as Fair Work First commitments, down the supply chain to subcontractors and to agency workers. Evidence which should be sough can include, reviewing recruitment information which could include pay policy and the terms and conditions for workers involved in the delivery of the contract.
Where there are material concerns regarding a supplier’s compliance with any sustainable procurement commitments or the contractual obligations it has made, an Organisation could consider whether to undertake general sustainability audit of the contract.
Incentives and sanctions should be used appropriately to maintain/improve the contract/supplier performance.
There are specific contract terms and conditions (T&Cs) that can be used to help drive contract compliance/performance. These should be incorporated into the contract T&Cs.
You should ensure that you understand the contract's specific T&Cs. Any incentives and sanctions must be appropriate and legally enforceable. You must seek legal advice if you are in doubt as to the wording, appropriateness or legality of a proposed condition.
Examples of incentives and sanctions which could be considered are listed below. These must not be applied autonomously. Appropriate internal approval must be sought and received prior to implementation.
Incentives could (subject to avoiding substantial modification) include:
For a sanction to be effectively enforced, sufficient evidence is required to justify the claim or action. It is therefore important to have clear records which could include records of; agreed service levels; notice periods; reminders; communications; agreements etc.
Any enforced incentive or sanction must comply with the agreed terms and conditions for the contract or agreement.
Improvement opportunities can be identified by anyone engaged with the Organisation, both internally and externally.
Many improvement ideas can come from management, employees and supplier(s) operationally involved in the delivery of the service/ goods contract. Supplier(s) and employees can be particularly insightful as they are regularly exposed to operational inefficiencies which may not be visible higher up in the Organisation.
Your Organisation should seek feedback and should work to develop a culture where everyone in the Organisation is encouraged to look for, and suggest, operational improvements. All suggestions should be considered.
Contracts are awarded following a thorough evaluation process which addresses some standard elements.
Throughout the life of the contract, your Organisation’s Contract Managers/Contract Management Officers should perform periodic supplier ‘health checks’. This ensures the standards demonstrated during the initial evaluation are being maintained. Health checks could include:
The frequency of the checks should be in line with the type of contract. For example, strategic and bottleneck contracts will be checked more frequently than collaborative and routine contracts.
Performance Review Meetings provide your Organisation and the supplier with an opportunity to:
The Review Meeting Meeting Template can be completed by your Organisation and the supplier before the meeting. This will provide a structure to the meeting.
It is best practice to hold at least an annual review for suppliers identified (under the segmentation process) as requiring ‘medium level’ supplier management. At least two review meeting per year should be held for ‘high level’ suppliers.
The Review Meeting Template and a Meeting Agenda Example are available below to assist you in doing this. These documents can be amended to suit the requirements of your contract.
Quickfire Guide
|
Agenda Item |
Description |
|
Introduction and Opening Remarks |
Introduce attendees. Recognise special or new guests. Provide any opening remarks that are pertinent to this meeting such as current events, organisational changes, etc. |
|
Review of Action Items |
Each Performance Management Review meeting will produce some follow up action items for your supplier, your Organisation or both. These should be documented and followed up at the next Performance Management Review meeting. |
|
Supplier Performance
|
Performance against SLAs/ KPIs/ Scorecards should be reviewed and discussed, and any performance concerns raised. This will be a quick review if all deliverables are being achieved. Any "below plan" performance will demand more discussion and most likely recovery action plans. These plans should be managed operationally and reviewed at the next Performance Review meeting. |
|
Customer Performance
|
The supplier can raise any customer performance issues. For example these may be impacting their ability to their contractual obligations. |
|
Key Improvement Areas/ Opportunities |
All opportunities for improvement should be explored. Once identified, action plans should be agreed. Areas to be explored should include: current performance issues, cost, process, Sustainable Procurement, Corporate and Social Responsibility, innovation/value add. |
|
Supplier Presentation |
The supplier should provide a business overview, including example financial information, strategy, overarching objectives, etc. |
|
Meeting Summary and Review of Action Items |
Round up of meeting and confirm next meeting date. |
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Persuading stakeholders to implement change can be difficult. This is particularly true if there are no absolute, cast-iron guarantees to support the proposal. Therefore you must consider how to show the potential benefits of an embedded Contract & Supplier Management (CSM) model.
The guidance below and the linked templates should help you build the necessary business case / justification.
Quickfire Guide
Another approach is to consider the risks and missed opportunities of not focusing on CSM, for example:
Consequently, CSM is unlikely to be effective unless the parties move from a transactional to a relational model. This could actively encourage and develop close working relationships and resulting mutual benefit(s).
The success of the relationship between an organisation and suppliers/service providers depends on the extent to which there is:
You need to build the relationship outside of the traditional constraints of a performance-based contract. A 'we are in this together’ approach should be fostered. This will encourage open communication and maximise service and cost efficiencies.
To succeed, build on small success: when a pattern of small successes has been achieved, proposing a more ambitious CSM plan becomes less daunting. This is because you have proven results to refer to.
Instead of leaping into the unknown, it becomes the expansion of an already successful process. Initial small successes are a recognised option to create awareness and buy-in for the larger initiative. Small projects are likely to be the best way to gain the support necessary for broader, organisation-wide embedded CSM model adoption.
The selection of small project(s) is important. It should be contracts or services not in crisis and which have scope for improvement. It is even better if it is a contract or service where stakeholders have voiced concerns or expressed a desire to seek improvements.
Once the contract/service has been agreed, a small cross-functional team should be created under a nominated contract manager who will own and manage the small project.
As laid out in more detail throughout the CSM guidance, the nominated cross- functional team should:
Once the desired outcomes are agreed, your nominated contract manager should ensure maintained focus within both organisations until they have been achieved and delivered. The results should be used to demonstrate the untapped potential open to a focused CSM approach.
The Business Case Template, found at the bottom of this page contains some ideas you may wish to include and should help lay out the business case. Your Organisation may have a standard template to use.
Managing the supplier contractual relationship requires a discrete set of responsibilities and activities. As a result this should be the responsibility of a nominated member of staff. An organisation should consider how to ensure that:
These considerations should be built into the commodity/service specification and/or the terms and conditions of the contract.
Your Contract Manager should be engaged early in the process. This will ensure they engage early with stakeholders and determine the appropriate contract service level requirements and Key Performance Indicators. Service level and KPI requirements should have been included in the tender documentation.
Please go to the Roles and Responsibilities station for more information.
Determining the resource required to manage the contract portfolio/supplier base is not an exact science. Very often it is subjective.
Any organisation planning to transition Contract and Supplier Management responsibilities to an embedded CSM team, must estimate the resource required. You should invest time too realistically and pragmatically plan required resources.
Some resource planning options are laid out below.
Resource planning for a new CSM team often depends upon the judgement of an experienced manager. You should provide enough information for an experienced manager to make an initial estimation of the extent of work required i.e. to manage the volume of Leverage, Routine, Strategic and Bottleneck suppliers.
A decision may be made to start with a small selection of critical and/or problematic suppliers. Then you may gradually incorporate more contracts/suppliers with additional resource coming on board as appropriate.
The Resource Planning Tool, found at the bottom of this page, is taken from a particular Scottish public sector organisation’s successful proposal to transition from a traditional ‘let & forget’ model to a CSM model (and is indicative only). For the avoidance of doubt, this organisation absorbed the workload into the existing headcount by reallocating/re-prioritising responsibilities and eliminating non-value add activity.
Quantification / segmentation is the most accurate methodology of estimating the resource required to manage the contract / supplier portfolio. Applying this methodology allows you to allocate limited resources where they are most needed and helps target best value improvements. It is however, still an ‘estimation’ as many factors can affect the resource requirements, such as:
Please refer to the Segmentation station for guidance
For Care and Support Services processes must not duplicate those of the Care Inspectorate.
The care manager is the role which has overall responsibility for ensuring the care and support for an individual is achieving the desired outcomes.
You need to identify the strategic positioning of your contract. The Strategic Positioning Tools found in the Develop Commodity/Service station can assist you in doing this.
Regardless of how formal a commodity/service strategy is, or is not, there is always thought and decision making on:
A straightforward way of assessing the potential level of CSM required is to consider the:
The Resource Planning Tool, which can be found at the bottom of this page, can be used to help you estimate the amount of resource required for your contract management needs. The tool at the bottom of the page has been pre-populated with example data but can be overwritten, to suit your requirements.
This tool will provide an estimated resource calculation. There is a natural tendency to over-estimate the work required, and it is important to avoid this by being as pragmatic as possible. It is worthwhile comparing/collaborating with a similar organisation which has a more mature CSM operation. Especially where an organisation lacks the experienced managerial staff required to make informed judgements. This collaboration will allow your organisation to benefit from the mature organisation’s experience You will factor in distortions such as the learning curve they experienced on the journey towards maturity.
The Kraljic Matrix – Supply Management Positions Tool, which can be found at the bottom of the page, allows you to record all CSM activities for each segment. There are some examples pre-populated in this document which can be deleted/amended as required and to suit your organisation.
The output from the Resource Planning Tool can be input into this tool.This document helps you segment your contract portfolio into four categories (Leverage, Strategic, Bottleneck, Routine). This will allow your organisation to record the extent of work involved in managing each category. This includes frequency of performance review meetings and frequency of Management Information, etc.
For further guidance on Segmentation, please visit the Segmentation station.
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Where you have not built an electronic catalogue as part of the tender process and the commodity/service is deemed to be made into a catalogue, you should set up the successful tenderer on the Pecos Content Management System (PCM) to ensure that you can prepare the catalogues.
The process of content management from start to finish can take weeks, mainly dependent on the size (number of line items) and the number of catalogues involved.
Quickfire Guide
You will need to:
The above should be done before finally issuing to the end user organisations.
It is essential to allow enough time in your process for these tasks to be completed prior to the date that the contract or framework is required to be active.
Below are the key considerations for communicating the contract. These should be considered in your communications plan.
Having completed the procurement to the point of award it is essential to communicate effectively. Communication of the Contract Award and of the subsequent procedures is essential to ensure compliance. It also maximises the planned benefit(s) from the procurement exercise.
You must know who you are targeting with your communications. During strategy development you should have identified all key stakeholders from suppliers to end users. You should consider communications in terms of the three areas below, for each of the identified stakeholder groups.
What is your communication about? Be clear on your key and supporting messages. Ensure that the subject is appropriate for the audience (stakeholder group). Ensure the communication stays focused on what they need to know and what is expected of them.
Plan and consider your communications timings carefully, in line with the implementation process. Your communications must:
Communication should take place at the start, throughout and end of the process. .
You must consider how you communicate to your audience. This can be determined by the stakeholder audience you are targeting.
You may also wish to consider (but not limited to):
Newsletters- stakeholder community;
Intranet/internet article - public audience
e-zines – targeted group;
e-mail - small targeted group;
Roadshows – specific bidders or the general supplier community.
Accessibility requirements of your audience and accessibility legislation should be considered.
Some activities undertaken are described more fully further along this process e.g. buyer/end user information packs, supplier buyer events.
This is intended as a guide rather than being prescriptive.
Communication with people who use services and their carers
Having finalised and agreed the procurement plan, an organisation should communicate its intentions to people who use the services and also their carers/representatives. It is important that an organisation provides clear and unambiguous information at this stage and that this information is tailored to the particular audience.
In these communications an organisation should explain:
An organisation should also provide contact details for further information.
An organisation should ensure that people who use services and also their carers have help to understand the process and what, if anything, they are being asked about. It should also ensure that these people have sufficient time to consider how they might be affected and to formulate their views before having to respond
Transitional arrangements
It is important that this stage of the procurement process is managed successfully to ensure minimum disruption to people who use services and their carers. This will require close co-operation between different teams within an organisation and between it and service providers.
This is particularly important where the outcome of the procurement exercise involves the transfer of an existing service to a new service provider. This is because there is some potential for the transfer process to be demanding and consume significant amounts of staff time. An organisation should facilitate the transfer of accurate, up to date information to the new service provider and ensure that the handover arrangements are appropriate and fully implemented.
Service providers will need to satisfy the Care Inspectorate that it can adhere to the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 and Regulations and also meet the relevant National Care Standards. The Care Inspectorate can take up to approximately six months to register a new care service. This depends on a range of issues, including provision of a competent application and the complexity of the service being provided.
Where an existing service provider seeks to deliver a new service under the existing registered care services, this should be discussed with the Care Inspectorate. It may be possible to vary the registration to include the new contract. However, consideration would need to be given to: the current conditions of registration; the size of the service; management and staff support arrangements; geography; client group and needs of those people who use services; transferability of staff across the service; staff skills and training; and the aims and objectives of the service.
If a service provider applies to cancel its registration, it is legally required to state whether notice has been given to those people who use the services and their carers about the changes to its service and how their needs will be met if the application to cancel is approved by the Care Inspectorate. An organisation should provide the necessary support and information to a service provider to enable it to meet its legal obligations.
An organisation which is outsourcing a service or bringing a service back in-house will have to meet its legal obligations under the TUPE Regulations. It should, in all such cases, seek legal advice on application of the TUPE Regulations. In other cases involving the transfer of an existing service, an organisation should consider whether it needs to take any action, for example to facilitate the exchange of information between service providers, should the TUPE Regulations apply.
The first meeting with the successful supplier should be held as soon as possible after contract award.
The purpose of this meeting is to:
You must keep in regular contact with the supplier during the contract implementation phase, scheduling additional meetings and communications.
You may wish to create an information pack for organisations and/or users which contains key contract information including:
This information pack should demonstrate how the contract delivers best value and provides information on contract benefits e.g. savings, KPIs, improvements in quality and service, prompt payment of the full supply chain, sustainable procurement and community benefits expected etc.
An example of an information pack is the Postal Services End User Guide below. This is a detailed example. Every information pack must be proportionate to the size and complexity of the procurement, therefore your information pack may be much smaller.
A useful way to raise contract awareness amongst potential customers is to organise Supplier/Buyer events. This gives both parties an opportunity to meet each other and exchange information e.g. undertaking a Supplier/Buyer Event Presentation, and/or distributing information packs / buyers’ guides.
Such events can provide useful information which can be used in the current contract (assuming it does not cause a material change) or in future contracts.
You can award the contract:
Before awarding the contract to the successful tenderer(s) you should check the following.
Checklist
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Have you received the most up-to-date supporting documents referred to in the selection stage response e.g. certificates? |
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Was the Standstill Notice sent to all bidders? |
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Were there any concerned candidates? If so, was the Standstill Notice sent to them? |
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Has the standstill period actually passed? |
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Were any concerned candidates or bidders not notified electronically? If so a 15 days standstill applies. |
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Blank rows are provided for your use e.g. to add additional checklist items.
The contract documentation should be collated and finalised to reflect the successful tenderer’s submission and agreed terms and conditions. This documentation must be signed in duplicate by the appropriate authority levels in both the contracting and tenderer's organisations.
You must include Fair Work practice commitments from the successful tenderer’s bid as standard Contract & Supplier Management criteria in the contract terms. This will include any agency or sub-contractor workers.
You must include terms which will apply to new members of the workforce during the delivery of the contract.
It is also important to include terms, which will apply to any new members to the workforce during the delivery of the contract.
The documentation must be signed in duplicate by the appropriate authority levels in both the contracting and tenderer's organisations.
You must consider who you need to inform when a contract has been awarded and the information they require e.g. notify stakeholders and users of the contract award, providing them with timescales, details of the contract, any migration considerations.
If using PCS-Tender, the Contract Award must be activated on the system. This activation does not generate correspondence to the tenderers. As a result you must issue the award on PCS.
A Contract Award Notice is a public announcement of the public procurement exercise outcome. This public announcement can be made in two ways:
In both of the above scenarios PCS will automatically direct your Contract Award Notice via the correct publication system.
Publication of a Contract Award Notice is mandatory for ALL Route 3 procurement exercises.
The Contract Award Notice must be despatched no later than 30 calendar days after the contract or framework agreement award date. This also applies when a mini competition is £50k or over and has been called off from a Framework Agreement.
Contract Award Notice(s) must be published on the Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) portal. Contract Award Notices published via PCS will contain all of the mandatory information required.
When running a procurement exercise, there may be some circumstances where you wish to award some lots and not others.
For example:
To support this, in Public Contracts Scotland (PCS), you will have the capability to award selected lots through separate award notices.
The process in PCS is:
There are no changes to the award notice itself and the award process will also stay the same.
For contracts created via a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS), Contract Award Notices can either be:
The Public Contract Scotland (PCS) Contracts Register module provides buying organisations a facility to operate a private register of all contracts they have in place, and a public register of these contracts to meet the obligations of the Procurement Reform Act (Scotland) 2014.
When you publish a PCS award notice an entry is automatically made in your contracts register. Your organisation will need to make the decision whether to make the contracts register publicly viewable or not.
The PCS contracts register will pull through the contract value from your contract award notice. You should always be as open and transparent as possible when completing this field. This field can be manually amended but all relevant amendments have to be manually duplicated in the Scottish Procurement Information Hub (there is no integration between the two systems for manual amendments).
Even if you withhold the contract value from a contract award notice, this does not exempt the information being subsequently disclosed under the Freedom Of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). To withhold information under FOISA, the information would have to, or be likely to, cause substantial prejudice. Also, the public interest in withholding the information would have to outweigh the public interest in its release.
Detailed contracts register user guidance can be found in PCS.
PLEASE NOTE: if you do not use PCS for producing a contract register, you still must produce a publicly available one.
The contract award notice must include a community benefits statement when:
the Procurement Documents stated community benefit requirements will be imposed in the contract,
If included, this statement must include the benefits you believe will derive from community benefits clause(s) through the life of the contract.
a) would impede law enforcement;
b) would be against the public interest;
c) would affect the commercial interests of particular tenderer(s), whether they are public or private, or
d) may impact fair competition between tenderers
Where the publication would affect the commercial interests of particular tenderers, you must demonstrate that the commercial interests of the company concerned would definitely be prejudiced by releasing the information.
As with all stages of the Procurement Journey consideration must also be given to Planning, Sustainable Procurement and Risk Management. For example you must be mindful that there is always a risk of supplier challenge to your procurement exercise. You must therefore do what you can to mitigate such risks.
There are standstill requirements that must be followed before your organisation can enter into a contract.
These do not apply where:
A mini-competition can be issued with no standstill for Framework Agreements which are already in place. These templates may be used to notify the successful and unsuccessful tenderers in this instance.
Where a standstill period is required, you must send a specific notification to tenderers and candidates concerned (the Standstill Notice), which commences a standstill period. Using a standstill notice you must inform each tenderer and concerned candidate as soon as possible of the contract award decision reached.
A standstill notice communicates the intent to conclude the contract. It should be sent as soon as possible after the contract award decision has been made.
A notification must also be issued to each candidate and tenderer providing, where applicable, the grounds for any of the following decisions:
Responses to a Written Request
In addition to the standstill notice you must respond within 15 days to a tenderer’s written request to:
If PCS-Tender is being utilised, the notification can be issued electronically through the system.
Specifically in relation to the procurement for Care and Support Services, on the award of a contract or conclusion of a framework agreement, you should communicate the outcome of the procurement exercise to the people who use the services and also to their carers.
Your Organisation may withhold certain information, regarding the contract award, where the release of such information would:
As with all aspects of the Procurement Journey, the activities at this stage must be carried out in a carefully managed way that supports the Principles of Procurement.
Please note, if the commodity/service was deemed to be suitable for cataloguing, the buyer should set up the successful tenderer on the Pecos Content Management System (PCM) to ensure that they can prepare the catalogues where it has not already been done.
PCM is not appropriate for Care and Support Services