For many years bidding for a Public Sector contract meant days of printing, collating and binding multiple copies of proposals. For large bids we frequently needed vans to deliver the volume of bid documents required for us to be compliant.
The 2014 European Public Procurement Directive emphasised the use of electronic communication to improve efficiency. Since then, we have seen an increasing use of portals and emails to communicate our bid documents. On 18th October 2018, a number of additional regulations came into force, which apply to all contracting authorities subject to the EU procurement rules.
Now all communication or information exchange (and most importantly, the submission of tenders) must be by electronic means. The regulations require that the communication systems must be easily accessible and non-discriminatory. However, the regulations allow that electronic submission is not required:
- If the nature of the procurement is specialised such that electronic communication would require “specific tools, devices or file formats” that are not generally available or not generally accessible
- If the applications (or viewers) which are required to open a file containing a tender document are not widely available or are under a specific proprietary licence and cannot be made available to the contracting authority
- If the use of electronic communication would require specialised office equipment which would not be generally available to the contracting authority
- If the tender submission requires a scale model
- Where there has been a breach in the security system of the authority
- Where the information is of such a high level of sensitivity that its security cannot be assured by use of electronic communication
In addition, there is no requirement for tenderers to submit supporting documentation when the contracting authority is already in possession of the documentation. We now only need to identify the documentation held. The idea is that this should reduce the requirement to send the same documents multiple times.
So, does this mean that the use of paper in procurement competitions will finally stop? Unfortunately, I think not. I know that having some printed pages helps evaluators with their task. I have not yet come across a bid where the document (or key parts of the document) are not printed out at some point, so that the evaluators can scribble on them.
An issue for tenderers is that relying upon previously provided information has its disadvantages. Nothing irritates an evaluator more than having to stop the evaluation to hunt down information which he or she cannot easily find.
What this means for us is that, if electronic submission will create problems for us in submitting our bid, we should look at the requirements and consider objecting on the grounds of discrimination. If we can find an exception which applies, we should pursue it.
If we are going to submit an electronic bid, we must still examine what the document will look like in both the electronic and printed form. We must give the evaluator the impression we are a high-quality organisation and some of that impression comes from the “look and feel” of the bid. Finally, if we are going to rely upon previously supplied information, then we must clearly identify the information and give details of when it was supplied. In addition, we should give a precis of the information to help the evaluator. We want them to avoid having to go and find the source documents, if possible.
Overall, I believe that these mandatory changes are a good thing and they will help us all. We can now push back on any requirement for printed documents or duplicate copies, if they arise. However, our task is still to give the evaluator the feeling that we are the best organisation to contract with. The bid remains a crucial part of achieving this. So always think “Evaluator” when choosing the options.
If you run into any issues with any of the points raised in this article, please do call us on 01227 860375 for a no-obligation chat.
