Winning a council tender

[quackhandle]

My local chamber of commerce send me some invites for tender from a local council. The requirement is something I could possibly offer.

Anyone ever done this and actually won the tender?

qh

[tarbera]

forget it

unless you know someone in the council already its a closed shop.

I know one small business in Glasgow that buys 4 Celtic season tickets for the No7 Restaurant for Friends of the procurement team since 2002 - that business seems to win a lot of work

New Windows required for your house sir - ohhh we can do your whole house for £350, since you have just given us another council contract worth £500K

[Lance]

I would say forget it for different reasons.

The tender process is long-winded and time-consuming. If you're on the bench then maybe consider it.
The reason it's so long winded is to prevent corruption. Everyone gets the same details (insufficient requirements usually), and you have to go round the houses with different forms for many weeks.

The last one I did, for which we were the 'preferred' option was so time consuming we ended up no-bidding despite assurances from the old school tie brigade that it's ours to win.
We had just landed a bigger deal, in under 3 days and didn't want the distraction (and it was a distraction especially when we got to the security bits).

Companies that do a lot of these have specialised idiots who are good at answering the ridiculous questions. The problem they have is the idiots promise things that can be difficult to deliver. Thje upshot is that the procurement rules that are supposed to prevent corruption simply mean that the solutions rarely fit the requirements and usually cost far more as the specialist companies are so busy chasing the next tender.

If you've got nothing better to do give it a crack and let us know how it goes.

Caveat: I've not done one for about 8 years so it may have changed.

[CoolCat]

unless you know someone in the council already its a closed shop.

I know one small business in Glasgow that buys 4 Celtic season tickets for the No7 Restaurant for Friends of the procurement team since 2002 - that business seems to win a lot of work

New Windows required for your house sir - ohhh we can do your whole house for £350, since you have just given us another council contract worth £500K

Re "New Windows required for your house sir - ohhh we can do your whole house for £350, since you have just given us another council contract worth £500K" its the same with building inspection. The building control people who need to sign off on new build housing meeting regulations are often drinking with the very builders who need their new housing signed off on a Friday night, and aherm get bought an awful lot of rounds which they never seem to chip into, and I am sure other favours are done. Hence one of the reasons the quality of new build houses in this country is so bad.

[HugeWhale]

The threads around corruption are over-egged in my experience. I have no doubt that some backhanders are given and that brown envelopes get passed under tables, but overall local government in the UK is amazingly free of corruption.

The problem is the process. If they use a 'restricted' process then you're bogged down in the world of Pre-Qualification Questionnaires. This is like the seventh circle of hell - they will have a mandatory requirement, for example, that you submit your company's race relations policy. Don't have one? Then you'd better write one or you're automatically excluded.
Then there's your company's diversity statement, equal opportunities policy, green travel plan, last five years' health and safety statistics, a statement of your cashflow forecast for the next three years......the list goes on and it's truly painful.

If they use an 'open' process then anyone can just bid. You submit your proposal and that's it. I'd stick to these. They sift by price first and quality second. So get in the bottom three price-wise and you have a chance.

Also, a good rule of thumb is to spend no more than 2% of the contract value producing your bid. E.g. a 150K contract, 2% = 3K, should take no more than 6 days to put together if your rate is £500/day. You can spend more than 6 days on the PQQ alone (though the PQQs get easier after the first one as you build your library).

[CoolCat]

The threads around corruption are over-egged in my experience. I have no doubt that some backhanders are given and that brown envelopes get passed under tables, but overall local government in the UK is amazingly free of corruption.

The problem is the process. If they use a 'restricted' process then you're bogged down in the world of Pre-Qualification Questionnaires. This is like the seventh circle of hell - they will have a mandatory requirement, for example, that you submit your company's race relations policy. Don't have one? Then you'd better write one or you're automatically excluded.
Then there's your company's diversity statement, equal opportunities policy, green travel plan, last five years' health and safety statistics, a statement of your cashflow forecast for the next three years......the list goes on and it's truly painful.

If they use an 'open' process then anyone can just bid. You submit your proposal and that's it. I'd stick to these. They sift by price first and quality second. So get in the bottom three price-wise and you have a chance.

Also, a good rule of thumb is to spend no more than 2% of the contract value producing your bid. E.g. a 150K contract, 2% = 3K, should take no more than 6 days to put together if your rate is £500/day. You can spend more than 6 days on the PQQ alone (though the PQQs get easier after the first one as you build your library).

Try finding out which building inspector signed off your house as meeting regs, you carnt. And there is no complaints process if they obviously got it wrong. Of course there is corruption because there is so much money in a new house sale, and so little come back if any inspection is ever found lacking. Given the massive % of new build housing with serious problems, you would have thought that they are being incorrectly signed off would have come to someones attention.

Lots of other examples, friends of councillors and senior officers getting planning permission that is way outside what anyone else would get. A good 10 to 20 % of kids in outstanding schools are there simply because their parents know the right people in the public sector to pull the strings. Social housing allocation, again best houses always seem to go to people with connections.

So I dont accept this "corruption are over-egged" line of argument.

[quackhandle]

Thanks for replies very interesting, a lot l never even considered. I am working with a company now with current client l could involve them as they want to work with me again. They don't offer the service/skill that l do.

qh

[tomtomagain]

The objective of the first round of a tender process ( whether it's local council or private business ) is normally to exclude unsuitable suppliers.

So you'll get a standard list of questions like:

What is your annual turnover?

What percentage of your staff are dedicated to support?

Provide us with a copy of your current org chart.

How long have you been in business?

What quality standards have you implemented?

And so forth.

However, if you have something they want, they will let you through. As an example, I won two tenders last year by politely refusing to tender. The first was a French retailer ( lots of questions like what percentage of the workforce was based in France ), I spoke to the guy running the tender after he kept chasing me to submit my application and told him that it's a small company, you won't pick us due to our size and that he should talk to an established consultancy like Wipro or IBM.

Second one was a UK "Health Care" provider. Similar story, similar outcome.

So you can win them. But I say you have a higher chance if they are after something that is niche. If it's just a ".NET website" then you'll be competing with much larger and better-resourced competitors.

If you think you could do it, then apply, you'll get a good insight as to what they require. Just because you apply, doesn't mean you need to submit.