Writing a tender specification

[Oaktech]

I've not been asked to do this, but I want to be pro-active...

 

Our nightmare contract with Danwood ends in 16 months and due to other operating issues I can foresee a situation where we arrive at the end of our contract and no-one has done anything about it and either we are left with very few printers and no copiers, or we end up re-signing with Danwood for another 12 months to ensure business continuity while we get our act together... Neither option appeals to me!

 

Obviously I'm not going to start a formal tender process without authorisation, I'm not an idiot and I'd quite like to keep my job, but I would like to prepare a document that sets out our requirements and parameters and our expectations.

 

I'm pretty aware of the types of device, numbers of devices, access control systems, page counts and page prices that we expect to see, so I believe I have all the components, but I have no idea how to set it out.

[woody]

Do you have a business or finance manager who could help you with this? The general writing of the document should be fine but there may be specific guidance on the process that you would need to consider as well as from a legal point of view.

[woody]

Also googling can help. For example:

 

- Mills & Reeve Procurement Portal - Public Procurement Law - Invitation to Tender Template

[Oaktech]

I'm looking at the general writing of the document, the actual procedure will be down to the usual finance/head to instigate, but if I have a specification ready to go I can serve that up at the inevitable moments notice.

[crt404]

It's years since I've written one, but the three things I remember:

 

i) You only have to officially tender over a certain cost (£25,001 IIRC - feel free to correct me)

ii) You can only put what you want the end product to do, not a proposed solution, ie. 'A computer suite of 25 graphic editing PC's' not '25 HP 6800 series PC's'

ii) You can state what you are going to measure them on ie. 50% price, 25% delivery time, 25% support levels

 

There's got to be some good templates online somewhere.

[Oaktech]

I have learnt this morning that I could specify an actual technology - it's called a closed specification. That is largely irrelevant however as that is not what I want to do, I want these companies to go away and be creative with their solutions!

 

After the experience of Danwood and having new clauses sprung on us without any previous notification I want to get SLA and Ts&Cs on the table at an early stage for comparison and general visibility.

 

(And I quote: but it was in the document X person signed and thats why we can't fix your $issue... It was in the document X person signed, thats why it's OK for us to charge you twice the usual rate for $Service. The document referenced in sub clause Y of document Z that X person signed clearly indicates conditions that must be met and that is why we are not violation of our SLA. Jelly. Nail. Wall.)

 

You are correct about the value of the tender, but as this is over 3 academies with a combined printing bill of around £80k tender is the way things have to be!

[fiza]

The ceiling at which formal tender documents are required will depend on your school policies. At ours its anything over £10,001.

Your Business Manager should have tender documents that he/she has used for other large contracts ie the cleaning contract which you can adapt.

[crt404]

Well just thank goodness it's under the ojeu threshold - that's an area I never wanted to go into!

[Oaktech]

I've asked now, and there is no tender document.

 

Because we do almost everything in house, we have no large external contracts other than IT related ones and those have not exceeded the the 25k limit.

[fiza]

I've asked now, and there is no tender document.

 

Because we do almost everything in house, we have no large external contracts other than IT related ones and those have not exceeded the the 25k limit.

 

in-house cleaners too? furniture replacement?

[Oaktech]

in-house cleaners too? furniture replacement?

 

We've never bought more than 25k of furniture in one go apparently and yes, internal cleaners.

 

The only thing we've done has been building work and that has been in the 100's of thousands and is handled by our legal firm to which I don't have access without being charged for the privilege!