What we all can learn from the experience

Provision of an Expert Witness

Recently, one of Sixfold’s directors, Peter Lobl, appeared as an ex parte expert witness in a ground-breaking procurement case in the High Court in London.  The case was filed by an aggrieved bidder against the Ministry of Defence claiming an erroneous bid evaluation result.  The judgement established a precedent for the information which must be provided about the evaluation process in bid instructions.  In addition, there were some salutary lessons for all bidders which emerged, which are summarised below.

Our Client, MLS was delighted with the result.  The MLS General Counsel and legal strategist, Dr Anton Micallef, said “MLS has been awarded the contract by the court, a remarkable achievement and the result of great team work.  Peter’s contribution was considerable and key to the success of our efforts.”

The Background

In November 2017, MLS filed a claim to seek remedies against the MoD over its mishandling of the evaluation of their bid for providing and procuring port and support services to British naval vessels worldwide.  The procurement value was expected to exceed £400m.  As the incumbent provider, MLS had enjoyed an excellent relationship with the Royal Navy, for whom they had provided these services over the previous decade.

In the re-compete of their contract, the MoD rejected MLS’s bid even though it was ranked first, had the best quality score and the lowest price in the competition.  They did this because they evaluated one Pass/Fail sub-question as a Fail.  However, the MOD had not disclosed to bidders in their instructions that a Fail score meant instant elimination or that a single Fail score would result in rejection of the entire bid.

The Judgement

MLS sought Expert Witness evidence to support its case that this was a hidden criterion and Sixfold was selected to act in this role.  We had a ringside seat as MLS challenged the rejection decision in the High Court and won back the contract award.

We believe that this is only the second time in the UK that a challenge during the standstill (Alcatel) period has resulted in the challenger being awarded the contract.  Previously, like most others in the profession, we had believed the best outcome you could get in a standstill challenge was either damages or the competition being cancelled and then restarted.

The Insights

Firstly, we have seen a clarification for the 30-day time limit to bring a challenge to a procurement issue.  The MoD argued that MLS’s challenge was out of time because the error was made in the ITT and not challenged within 30 days of the time of its release.  The judge ruled that the decision to reject MLS’s tender was the actual start of the time limit period and not the date the ITT was published.  So, we need to carefully assess the time a court would accept we could have reasonably known about a problem before assuming a challenge is out of time.

Secondly, we have learned that any error or ambiguity can be challenged, however insignificant it may appear at first sight.  If it is possible that a requirement could be interpreted ambiguously by tenderers then we could have a case.  So, we need to be prepared to “nit-pick” and forensically examine the details if a decision looks “wrong”.

Finally, we should remember the very wide scope available to challenge any procurement decision.  We have seen that the mere threat of legal proceedings can bring more detailed disclosure and changes to process.  We have even experienced contract awards being revoked, based on the threat of a formal challenge.  We need to look out for any instances of unfairness, e.g. non-transparency, unequal treatment, discriminatory criteria, hidden criteria and manifest errors.  If we find them, then we need to act quickly.

Of course, if you are not certain of the way forward, then please ask Sixfold to come and chat to you about what you need to look for.  The findings will be your bullets should you wish to fire them at an Authority who has not used the procurement processes correctly

Moreover, if you feel your team could benefit from a more detailed understanding of the ammunition for challenge, you might like to meet our Expert Witness.  Sixfold has a one-hour team briefing on this topic, looking at the potential for challenge from the bidder’s viewpoint.  Please give us a call on 01227 860375 if you think this would be of value.

A few organisations are starting to pick up that on 25th May 2018, the new Data Protection Legislation (the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)), comes into force.  It is targeted at improving privacy and preventing data breaches.  It is based upon EU legislation.  However, we expect that it will continue after Brexit, essential unaltered.  The Public Sector is already being pushed into altering all existing and new contracts, to bring them into alignment with this legislation.

Under the new regulations, companies must keep a complete record of how and when any individual gives consent to store and use their personal data.  Individuals, also, have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.  When somebody does withdraw consent, their details must be completely, permanently and swiftly erased, and not just deleted from a mailing list.  In other words, the legislation gives individuals the right to be forgotten.  There is some good guidance at https://ico.org.uk/media/1624219/preparing-for-the-gdpr-12-steps.pdf

The impact upon bidding organisations seeking both commercial and Public Sector contracts may be substantial.  It is routine for us to include CVs and references in bids.  We often name individual personnel to give credibility to their achievements or pass personal telephone numbers as emergency contact routes.  From May, each business will need to record the consent to those involved and have an accurate system of managing withdrawn consent.  It means we have to know where every instance of the personal data is lodged and to be able to amend it quickly.  For instance, can you be sure of where every one of your old bids are located?

When the legislation kicks in, companies will be required to provide regular data audits for EU authorities to prove they are compliant.  This means someone will have to go through every software application and database and record details such as the exact type of data they contain – whether it be names and addresses, or more personal information like achievements.  They will also have to identify who has access to it.

We expect that any organisation looking to comply with the new Data Protection legislation will incur costs in doing so, especially if it needs new systems or processes to be put in place.  The Public Sector view is that such costs are attributable to conducting business and not just supplying the Public Sector.  As a result, it expects all suppliers to manage their own costs in relation to compliance.  This means the overall costs of doing business with formal proposals is about to go up.

As bid professionals, we need to prepare for the changes now.  We must maintain a register of the personal data we use, when it was agreed to be used and where it is included in all our bids.  We need to let everyone who has personal data used in our work know where and the reasons for its use.  Plus, we have to tell them how they can withdraw their consent and how they can be sure that this has been achieved.

We think that this is a good time to include a preamble in every bid which contains personal details.  Like the statement that identifies that a document contains sensitive information which needs to be kept confidential, we now need to add something like:

“This document contains personal information provided with the consent of the individuals involved.  This information is highlighted on pages 7 to 9 and in Annex B.  This information is provided for the sole purpose of fair evaluation of our proposal and may not be copied or passed on to others for any purpose beyond the evaluation in this competition.  The individuals may withdraw their consent for the use of this information at any time and you must account for all copies of this information so it can be recovered or destroyed, if circumstances require.  Should you be unable to comply with this requirement, you must return this document and all copies to us immediately for all personal data to be redacted.”  We must then highlight the information accordingly.

How we might deal with such information which has been distributed in past proposals, is uncertain.  The GDPR covers the information in them too.  No doubt, we will have some court cases in the future which will set the direction.  In the meantime, your organisation may have a nominated Data Protection Officer and now is a very good time to talk through the issues with them.

Here you are, striving away day after day dealing with a relentless stream of complex and demanding bids.  There have been countless evenings and nights when you have been working alone in the office to meet a bid deadline.  And then, when you have had company, it was because it was “all hands to the deck” to overcome the crisis (not caused by you) of a strategically important bid not being on track to be completed on time.  When the bid was won, little of the credit was given to you as it was the sales team’s success.  Your reward was stale coffee, cold pizza and yet another bid to complete.

There is an antidote available for this situation.  You will probably be aware of the Bid Solutions Salary surveys.  They show that bid professionals who have achieved professional recognition through formally recognised programs earn significantly more than their unaccredited peers who are doing the same job.

The reasons for this are multifaceted; selection of applicants with an externally tested and recognised qualification reduces the hiring risk for a business and the hiring decision maker.  A “standard” methodology and basis upon which people develop their bids, leads to less ambiguity and lower error rates in the activities which need to come together when a bid is developed.  However, probably most importantly, companies pay more for people who contribute more.  People who have got the qualifications have demonstrated their ability to contribute and higher contribution leads to higher reward.

If this is not enough to convince you to put aside a chunk of time to get your APMP Foundation examination under your belt (or to progress to the next level), we have an even more compelling argument.  We recently ran a short survey of the people who had been through our Foundation training courses.  We wanted to know what impact the training, and its preparation which they had had to do, had made to their daily working life.  The results were instructive.

Over a quarter of our alumni responded.  What they reported was highly encouraging and when we analysed the detail we found:

• 94% reported that they had found the information they picked up on the Foundation course assisted them in the way they did their job.
• 54% reported that gaining the qualification helped boost their status within their organisation.

and

• 13% reported that the qualification had directly helped them earn a promotion or (for freelancers) win a new contract.

So next time you are feeling overworked and undervalued, you might want to reflect upon how your status might be affected by gaining a suitable level of professional recognition.  And, if you already have recognition but it is not affecting the way you are treated in your current job, just remember that it will be so much easier to move somewhere else where your talents will be more appreciated (and paid for!).  Otherwise, there is still that cold pizza to look forward to?

Sixfold’s latest success was with Grosvenor Services where we have both trained the team and then supported the bid manager.  They bid for all lots in a very large Government cleaning contract and have been selected against stiff competition in every one of them!  We just had the win decision yesterday .

Lessons learned from some years of working in the world of Public Sector procurement

After what seems a lifetime in either selling into the Public Sector or advising Public Sector clients on how to get the best from their procurement activities, I thought I had seen it all.  But now and then, something else happens and my “all” expands a bit more.  So what are my latest thoughts on getting that elusive “good” procurement?  Well, here are a few.

It is no secret that the entire Public Sector procurement process is designed to remove unfairness.  It tries to ensure that the supplier with the best overall answer to the needs will get the contract.  It is based upon the people with the problem, documenting their requirements and then making a case for the spend.  If they can convince their organisation, then they will get the budget and the procurement begins.  So far, so good!

However, the success of the procurement exercise depends upon three quite disparate groups agreeing that the eventual choice of supplier is best.

Those With the Problem

There is the group who has the problem.  They know what they want.  Indeed, they are paid for their expertise and their operational knowledge.  They absolutely know what is best for them to deliver the service they are set up to provide.  They are looking for the very best they can get, to be able to do their jobs most effectively and most easily.  They are probably measured on how well their job is performed and excellence in delivery is a key aspiration for them.

Those With the Money

Then you have the group that controls the money.  Of course, they want the best product or service.  However, their view is tempered by the availability of funds and the competing pressures of other funding requirements.  What they want is for the entire organisation to be seen as effective and to be making the best use of its resources.  But they are not practitioners and so they have to make their judgements based on their interpretation (generally as non-experts) of the competing claims for money which have been heaped upon them.  To them, success looks like keeping the funds under control.

The Procurement Experts

Then we have a third group who are expert in engaging the marketplace and ensuring that the process is conducted fairly and accurately.  Although they may well be absolutely committed to assisting the organisation to achieve its goals, their focus is on getting the competition run without a hitch.  They want a procurement exercise completed on time, without any competitor challenges to the decision and to able to robustly defend any later scrutiny of the procurement with a complete and auditable paper trail.  They will tend to measure success in terms of the level of adherence to the process and be less concerned (but not unconcerned) with what is purchased and its costs.  After all, they are not practitioners and it’s not their money!

So we have a process which attempts to bring each of these differing views into alignment.  The practitioners come up with a series of detailed criteria against which the procurement should be measured.  The money controllers decide the budget and what the relationship between price and “extras” should be.  And then the procurement team sanitises all these requirements to ensure no particular supplier or solution is obviously favoured.  This latter team then runs the procurement competition.  Whatever the outcome produced by this process is, this result will entirely satisfy all three groups – of course it will?

Well, sometimes it does not.  So where does it go wrong?  My experience is that it is at the boundaries.

The Boundaries

The first boundary is where the practitioners set out their requirements, which are then pruned back by the money controllers and the procurement team.  The practitioners know that they won’t get the money they really want so they may inflate their requirements.  The money controllers know what is going on and, in any case, they have to get the balance with the other areas of spend right.  As a result, they will seek to limit the budget and raise the impact of price within the evaluation process.

Then the procurement team will water down the specification so that it is “fair” and here is further potential for the practitioners to lose out.  We have seen that when a Public Sector contract is let, sometimes what is purchased works out fine.  But as a result of the successive dilution of the requirement, sometimes a purchase can be made which is entirely correct by the process but does not actually meet the practitioner’s original need.  This can often be seen when a high level of spend has occurred on a project and then it is suddenly discovered that a large overspend is needed to get the real results the business actually has to have.

The next thing that happens is that the competitors, who should know even more about their specialism than the “expert” practitioners, try to put the buying organisation “right”.  They do this by not answering the questions they have been asked in the Invitation to Tender, but answering the questions that “should have been asked” instead.  Of course, the practitioners may think that such responses are entirely right and justifiable.  However, the process police cannot let these “right” answers through; to do so would open the entire procurement up to challenge, delay and financial exposure.  This competitor does not get the contract and everyone loses, including the taxpayer.

Incumbent Example

We had a good example of this recently (albeit the other way around) where the incumbent was desperate to provide the ongoing service, but fixated on doing it at the absolute minimum cost.  It generally ignored the weightings in the tender documents and totally relied upon the information it was getting (from its long term, supportive and friendly practitioner contacts in the business) that ultimately cost would overcome everything else.  The practitioners, also, badly wanted the incumbent to continue and everyone wanted to avoid the transition costs of changing suppliers.  However, the procurement team had excluded transition costs from the evaluation (to make it a fair competition!) and, surprise, surprise, the incumbent subsequently lost out to what turned out to be a higher cost but better scoring competitor.  Then, of course, all the costs of transition were incurred!

In fact, any deviation from the process will put a competitor’s bid at risk.  We have had a bid which could not be loaded onto the electronic portal (because too many competitors were uploading bids at the last minute) and arrived 2 seconds (yes – 2 seconds) late, and which was denied entry into the evaluation process.  I’m sure you can visualise the challenge which would have arisen if they had been allowed to continue.  We have, also, had procurement teams who have helped their preferred bidder to the “right answer”.  When this was uncovered the entire competition had to be rerun.  However, on this occasion the bidder came top for the second time, without any assistance.

Process Divergence

Diverging from the process can also put the procurement team’s evaluation at risk.  We had another bid where the winning bid was supposedly 0.2% better than our client’s, who was told it had lost.  At the debrief it emerged that the price had been normalised (lowest price gets 100%, the higher prices get a reduced percentage by the amount they are more expensive) through a process which was described in the Instructions to Tenderers.  However, the procurement team had then applied the same logic to the quality score (100% to the best score and lower scores get a reduction in percentage in proportion to how much lower they were).  However, this process was not contained in the tender instructions.  Once this second and illegal “normalisation” was removed, our client had actually won by 0.1%!  In the end, instead of demanding the win decision must be reversed, our client accepted that the competition would be completely rerun for the sake of the “relationship”.  In the new competition, both these top scoring competitors came second and third to an outsider who decided to have a go when the competition was restarted!

The Supplier’s Responsibility

We have had many other similar situations which have all led to our belief that a “good” procurement cannot be achieved without a realistic and long term objective view being taken by all sides.  We believe that a “good” procurement always starts with the supplier.  After all, if the supplier is not more expert in its core business than its clients, it should question if it has a viable business.

We think it is up to the suppliers to educate the practitioners in the “art of the possible”, the benefits of its innovations and their constraints.  The procurement team also has some responsibility here too.  It must engage in really good market testing and then give feedback across all groups, to help ensure that the practitioner understands what is possible and available in the market.  Through these processes the practitioners can then make a convincing and balanced recommendation to the non-expert procurement team on how the technical elements of a competition should be run.  The suppliers, also, need to have sufficient dialogue with the money controllers so they can understand the cost/benefit of the specification approach the practitioners will be suggesting.  Then they can more realistically balance this against their other long and short financial pressures.

The Procurement Team’s Responsibility

The next step is for the procurement team to put a specification that works best for the taxpayer.  Artificially cutting out chunks of cost or capability to seek a “fairer” competition may not be fair for those that eventually have to pay the bill.  It is crucial to achieving a “good” procurement that the specification is not constructed in isolation within the terms of any one specific procurement exercise; we think it must always consider the wider aspects of what the taxpayer should expect to receive.  Moreover, if the procurement function is seen as an obstacle or blocker by the practitioners, it is failing and any subsequent purchase will not be a “good” procurement.

The Bid Team’s Responsibility

Then, the competitors must only respond to the questions they have been asked.  It is too late at this point to put the procurement team right if the published specification is wrong.  Either they must bid for what is asked or withdraw (which if, as a supplier, you give a good explanation of your reasons for not bidding, you may still get the competition stopped and rerun with different, better criteria).

Even more important for the supplier is that all the questions must be answered in line with the evaluation criteria, otherwise they may not be marked.  But then the supplier still has to make a convincing sales argument.  Woe betide the organisation who puts a project manager in charge of the bid because “a Public Sector bid is only another project.  Isn’t it?”  Do this and you will get a bid document delivered on time and to bid budget.  But you probably won’t get bid document which wins!

A Way Forward

So I believe that running and responding to a “good” Public Sector procurement competition is very different from procurement in a commercial environment.  We run consultancy engagements and training courses for both Public Sector and commercial teams.  Yet, on every engagement we find that exposing the aspirations, constraints and practices of one side to the other still delivers blinding insights about how things can be done better.  Counter intuitively, it is generally the most experienced members of these teams that seem to gain most from these insights.  Want to see what we can do?  Have a look at www.sixfold.biz or give me a call on 01227 860375.

I was at an event recently when the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Matt Hancock, raised a really interesting prospect.  He said that one of the things his team, presumably the Crown Commercial Service, are working on is a Crown Marketplace.  In essence this is the extension of the G-Cloud concept into non-ICT categories.  According to Civil Service World, these would be what CCS calls common goods and services, which can cover all generic requirements of departments.

Please register or login to view this content

John Fernau was previously commercial director at the Home Office and has now joined Sixfold International to help its clients win public sector contracts.

He draws on his experience to provide an insight into the way Whitehall engages with small business suppliers and shares advice on how to win work from national and local government.  We quizzed him about his experiences and this is what we learned.

What did you learn about small businesses and public procurement during your time at the Home Office?

I learnt a lot about it! As well as being the commercial director I was also the Home Office’s SME champion so I was very heavily involved in setting out the direction for the department’s strategy for small business engagement. My strong view was that the only way to really increase SME spend was to make changes on the buy-side, rather than just having lots of SME market engagement which looks good but doesn’t deliver much. This meant that the Home Office’s SME strategy focussed on breaking down large ICT packages into smaller chunks which SMEs could contract for, mainly using the SME friendly GCloud framework where the Home Office is still the biggest user.

SME success is seen as excellent news by civil servants and ministers (including the prime minister) and they like to see new and innovative SME suppliers breaking through. Sometimes unfortunately the machinery of government can impede small businesses. My sense was that complex public tenders favour the big established firms as they already understand how government decisions are made and who makes them; and also they have dedicated bid teams who have developed strong techniques and know how to ‘play the game’.

I wanted to personally work to change this beyond what I could do as a civil servant, so I left the Home Office to set up Fernau Solutions and help to ‘level the playing field’ for SMEs and give them some of the understanding and bidding acumen that the established suppliers have.

What are the key things business owners need to bear in mind when pitching for public sector contracts?

There are a lot of things to consider: in strategic terms about which bodies within the public sector to aim for and in what order, through to tactical bid skills such as understanding what is important to the buyer (as shown in the evaluation weighting) and making sure your bid effort reflects this.

I think it is really important that businesses think hard about which areas of the public sector their offerings are most relevant and to target those public bodies. There is a balance here though, as although government is increasingly encouraged to buy ‘off the shelf’ solutions rather than bespoke ones, public sector bodies are parochial and smaller businesses must tailor their marketing and language to be specifically relevant to the those they are targeting.

Although small businesses want to grow and may want to present themselves as bigger and perhaps more credible operators, it is important that they play to their strengths. If you are a UK based SME, then say so very clearly. Small businesses are perceived as being flexible, disruptive, and innovative; and these are rare and required qualities in government, especially given the unprecedented efficiency challenges which will emerge over the next five years. Although public buyers can’t formally favour small suppliers why not take advantage of this positive perception?

What are the common mistakes small business owners make when pitching for public sector contracts?

Firstly, I think small businesses often decide not to bid for opportunities as their turnover doesn’t meet the minimum required. meaning they are too small. However especially in competitions for framework agreements, the turnover requirement is often excessive compared to the resulting contracts, meaning that smaller businesses could have delivered them. To meet the requirement on turnover, small businesses often forget that they can partner with, or sub-contract, other small businesses and count all of their attributes, including turnover, in their bid and the government likes to see this collaboration.

Successful bid technique is like good exam technique; you have to answer the question. Too often, bidders provide answers that are easy for them to put together, as perhaps they can recycle a response or policy, rather than submitting the right answer. Given their limited bid resources, it is vital that small businesses are disciplined and honest with themselves in making their bid/no bid decisions and preparing their bids. There is nothing to be gained in submitting a weak bid.

I think small businesses can also get a lot more out of debriefing sessions with government buyers. If a small business is unsuccessful in a tender I would recommend insisting on a debriefing meeting and clearly stating that this is about improving your next bid and certainly isn’t about disgruntlement or challenging the decision. This will help the buyer to open up and give a candid steer on how to bid better, and small businesses will find this feedback ‘from the horse’s mouth’ invaluable.

How can business owners who win government contracts ensure that they deliver on them and maintain a good relationship with their client so that they get more work?

This is really important as having gone through all the hurdles of winning a contract, small businesses need to deliver really strongly to build their reputation in government and capitalise on the effort they have made. However, I have seen even major multinationals come unstuck once they get into contract with government for the first time!

I think the most important thing to understand is the need to build confidence with your new client by setting out very realistic plans on how and when you will deliver. It is more important to government that you reliably keep your promises, than to aim for very quick delivery and fail. This requires self-discipline, as naturally small businesses will be keen to please their demanding new client.

The media loves a bad news story about the government and this drives the government to be very risk averse with its programmes. Ministers and officials need to believe that you will deliver and this trust is built by steady and on-time delivery. Proposing to ‘throw everything at it’ and ‘it will be alright in the end’ simply aren’t acceptable. Especially in a new relationship it is important to start building trust and credibility by delivering as promised from the outset.

If you would like to meet them and see how his experience and expertise can help your business prosper, ring Sixfold now on 01227 860375

November 2015

We have just seen that a court has annulled a tender award decision for “lack of adequate reasoning”.  This decision was made when Ricoh bid for a contract for the purchase or hire of printers and their associated maintenance services.  Ricoh was informed its bid was unsuccessful for 3 of the 5 lots it had bid and, sensibly, it asked for a debrief.  It was given several items of information and even more when it complained that the information provided was inadequate.  The contracting authority dug its heels in at this point.

Ricoh took the case to court and claimed that the contracting authority had not provided sufficient reasons for its decision, in particular not explaining (either immediately after the decision was given or in the subsequent correspondence) how or why it had arrived at the technical requirements scoring.  As a result, Ricoh was not able to understand why the contracting authority could have concluded that the successful tender was better than its submission.

The court agreed and stopped the tender award.  We wait to see what will happen next.

From our viewpoint, this is another step along the pathway to more transparency.  It gives us, as bidders, the justification to be given (and to understand) the full reasoning for the scorings awarded.  We have reported before that a bidder is entitled to a “full tender evaluation report” once the competition is concluded.  The Ricoh case gives even more support to the argument for release of this information and shows us that we have a right be given the reasoning behind the evaluation as well, if it is not obvious from the information provided.

The message is clear.  Unless you can see that you have been fairly beaten in the evaluation, you owe it to the taxpayer to find out the detail of why you lost.  Then you must use this information to put matters right (and protect the taxpayer from misuse of its funds) or to make a better bid next time (and get some return on your investment in this bid to protect your shareholders).

If you need any more information on how or if you should seek the details of the tender evaluation you have been involved with, please call us on 01227 860375 now for a chat (no obligation).

26th January 2016

The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) is now a standard form for part of the Public Sector tendering selection process.  The Public Contracts Regulations requires a contracting authority to accept an ESPD from bidders as part of the selection process to reduce the administrative burden on bidders and the authority by simplifying the manner in which information and evidence is provided at the selection stage.

The ESPD is, essentially. a form of self-certification that the bidder does not fall within any of the listed grounds for exclusion and has the necessary financial resilience and technical and professional ability to perform the contract.  The intention is to reduce the amount of documentation required from bidders at an early stage in the competition by avoiding the need for bidders to submit evidence and documentation in support of the ESPD statements.

Of course the door is still open for the contracting authority to see his evidence at any point where it is necessary to ensure the proper conduct of the process.  However, it is likely that the contracting authority will not need this, except for the evidence from the bidder who has been nominated to be awarded the contract.  The winning bidder will have to produce the documents.

The European Commission recently published the standard form for the ESPD.  From today, 26th January 2016, in England and Wales contracting authorities must accept the ESPD from bidders as evidence, instead of certificates issued by public bodies or third parties (e.g. banks) to confirm that the bidder:

• Is not in breach of one of the mandatory or discretionary exclusion criteria.
• Meets the selection criteria set out at Regulation 58 (suitability to perform the contract, economic and financial standing and technical and professional ability).
• Where applicable, meets the criteria that the contracting authority is intending to apply to reduce the numbers who are invited to bid (e.g. for the Restricted procedure).

The Implementing Regulation states that procurement documents must reference what information the ESPD requires and that the ESPDs must be submitted with the tender in an Open procedures and with the Request to Participate in others.  If you receive an Invitation to Tender for a Public Sector contract which is worded in such a way as to prevent the appropriate information being submitted as an ESPD, please call us on 01227 860375 and we should be able to advise you on what you need to do to get the requirements altered.