Route 3 is designed for use by Procurement Officers. If this does not apply to you, please contact your Procurement Function or Centre of Expertise.
This route of the Procurement Journey provides guidance for regulated procurements for goods and services at the higher value regulated procurement threshold and above.
The Procurement Journey does not cover works procurements or contracts that cover "utilities" e.g. running tramways. This is the case whether the elements of the contract cannot be separated, or are separable but is the main subject matter of the contract.
Contract Notices should be used to advertise all Route 3 procedures. The only exception to this are:
The Contract Notice must contain the minimum and specific requirements for your procurement exercise.
You may choose to indicate:
Stating an indicative budget ensures that bidders' tenders for delivering the service are affordable. This may be appropriate if, for example, a procurement exercise fails and the organisation moves to negotiation with suppliers. In other circumstances, stating an indicative budget may make it difficult for an organisation to assess that the service represents value for money.
This is particularly important if there is an expectation that suppliers will submit consortia bids to allow discussions between suppliers to take place.
All Contract Notices must be published on Public Contracts Scotland (PCS).
PCS is the national advertising portal which provides suppliers with free access to contract opportunities. It guides you:
If using PCS-T or the SPD (Scotland) word document, you must set out the specific requirements and minimum standards for your procurement. These must be relevant and proportionate and included in your Contract Notice (or the PIN if that is being used as a call for competition).This is not necessary if using the online SPD (Scotland) Module on PCS as the relevant information is contained within this module.
If Using OJEU/TED:
If your procurement was advertised before 11 p.m. on 31 December 2020 (or is a call off from a Framework Agreement or a Dynamic Purchasing System that commenced before this date) you will receive a PCS alert after you have submitted the Contract Notice for publication on PCS. You will also receive a separate mail from Tender Electronic Daily (TED) with your temporary OJEU reference number.
Once your Notice is published in the OJEU, TED will send you a permanent OJEU publication number. You must retrospectively include your online SPD (Scotland) with this permanent OJEU number if using the PCS Module.
If Using FTS:
If your procurement was advertised after 11 p.m. on 31 December 2020 you will receive an FTS email after you have submitted the Contract Notice for publication on PCS.
You Contract Notice must contain details of how bidders can access your procurement documentation.
From the date you publish your Notice you must make your Procurement Documents available:
The Regulations define ‘procurement documents’ very widely. This includes all documents related to the procurement i.e. including technical specifications, terms and conditions and tender documents to be used at subsequent stages
In practical terms, it is not always possible to have all documents available at the start of your procurement exercise. Only in an Open Procedure are you required to have the ITT available from the outset. For all other procedures you must provide sufficiently precise information. This will allow bidders to understand the nature and scope of your requirement and decide whether to request to participate.
PCS-T Publication Procurement documents must not be published in PCS-Tender until you have received your publication reference number from FTS.
The procurement documents should be published in PCS-Tender on the same day of whichever of the above events occurs first.
All Organisations may give advance notice of planned procurements. This is done through the publication of a Prior Information Notice (PIN) which is not used as a means of calling for competition.
Contract Award Readiness Checklist
Before a Procurement Officer awards a contract they should check the following points:
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Who was involved in the tender award process? Have there been any changes in staff from those involved during the tender evaluation? |
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Did any of the tenderers drop out of the process and decide not to proceed with the tender? Consider if an unknown agreement was made. |
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Review the list of proposed suppliers/sub-contractors to be used by the successful bidder? Did these organisations also bid directly for the tender exercise? Such circumstances can lead to a pre-determined outcome as it would be irrelevant who was awarded the work. This may identify cartel operating. |
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Blank rows are provided for your use e.g. to add additional checklist items.
QUICKFIRE GUIDE Recommendation Report Contents
The report should contain reference to the following:
Once you have obtained approval you can notify both the successful and unsuccessful tenderers of the outcome, and they should be notified as soon as possible.
Information provided to tenderers must, where applicable, include the grounds for any decision:
Consideration must also be given to Planning, Sustainable Procurement and Risk Management throughout this stage of the Procurement Journey.
If uploading Procurement Documents to PCS file size restrictions apply. These are:
If you are using PCS-Tender, attachments cannot be added to the Contract Notice on PCS. You must add your documents to PCS-Tender.
If you use PCS Tender you must provide time limits for the receipt of tenders (bearing in mind statutory minimums).
Mixed procurements that contain any activity within the scope of the Defence and Security Regulations or the Utilities Directive must refer to their relevant legislation. Such procurement exercises do not come under the guidance of the Procurement Journey.
Where a procurement consists of a mix of activities:
Route 3 is not intended to replace training and it is assumed that individuals will have been trained in:
The main objectives of this route are:
Before beginning Route 3, please consider the following:
Good procurement is not just about buying well but it's often about buying less or, indeed, not buying at all.
Depending on the specifics of your procurement exercise, the types of questions you might ask of stakeholders before starting your procurement could include:
Consideration must also be given to Planning, Sustainable Procurement and Risk Management throughout the Journey.
Purchases of goods and services are the subject of Freedom of Information requests.
Please be aware that where the term 'commodity' is used within the Procurement Journey this can equally refer to categories and/or services.
Please note that, other than on the final contract, there is no legal requirement for a "wet" signature at any point of the procurement process.
You should use Lessons Learned from previous contracts/procurement exercises to inform your new strategy. As you progress through the Journey you should constantly re-inform your strategy with any new information.
There are natural break points within the Procurement Journey. These can be used as review points for sign off and approval to proceed to the next stage of the process.
Quickfire Guide
Suggested review and sign off points are:
Throughout the Journey you will see reference to these sign off points at the relevant sections with supporting documents.
Any approval and review of the project plan should be subject to your organisation's governance arrangements.
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Please ensure this guidance is used in conjunction with the internal governance, policies and procedures for your Organisation.