Contract Award and Implementation

You should now be at a stage where you have identified the successful tenderer(s).

From a fraud awareness perspective, the following checks should be made before progressing to the next stage.

Tender Award Documentation

Before a you award a contract you should check the following points:

Who was involved in the tender award process?
Have there been any changes in staff from those involved during the tender evaluation?
Did any of the tenderers drop out of the process and decide not to proceed with the tender? Consider if an unknown agreement has been made.
Review the list of suppliers/sub-contractors. Are they the same as other bidders involved in the tender exercise? Such circumstances can lead to a pre-determined outcome and therefore it would be irrelevant who is awarded the work. This may identify cartel operating.

Tender Award

A Contract Award recommendation report should be prepared by you prior to approval by the appropriate authority level within your Organisation. This recommendation report should be endosed by the User Intelligence Group.

Checklist

Award Recommendations Report Checklist

View Checklist

Once you have obtained approval you can notify both the successful and unsuccessful tenderers of the outcome.

Quickfire Guide

Communication to Unsuccessful Tenderer(s)

As soon as possible you should:

advise any unsuccessful tenderer of the reasons for the rejection of its request to participate
inform any unsuccessful tenderer of the reasons for the rejection of its tender. This should include any decision that the goods or services do not meet the performance or functional requirements
confirm the name of the successful tenderer, the criteria on which the contract was awarded and the score of the successful tenderer.

If requested, you also have to provide the characteristics and relative advantages of the successful tender, within 30 days of request.

Information should also be provided to tenderers about the grounds for any decision:

Not to conclude a Framework Agreement that has been advertised
Not to award a contract that has been advertised
To restart the procurement procedure

Your Organisation may withhold Contract Award information where the release of such information:

would prevent the enforcement of the law or
be contrary to the public interest, or
would affect the commercial interests of particular tenderer(s), whether they are public or private,
or may impact fair competition between tenderers.

Any tenderer may request additional information regarding the tendering process. You should respond in a timely fashion to any such requests.

If PCS-Tender is being utilised, the notification can be issued electronically through this system.

Where you have not built an electronic catalogue as part of the tender process and the commodity/service is deemed to be catalogueable, you should set up the successful tenderer on the Pecos Content Management System (PCM) to ensure that you can prepare the catalogues.

PCM is not appropriate for Care and Support Services.

For complex regulated procurements, you may find some of the guidance and tools in Route 3 to be of benefit.

Consideration must also be given to Planning, Sustainable Procurement and Risk Management throughout this stage of the Journey.

Route 2