Purchasing and Insurance Office
Overview of Restricted Tender Procedure
A Restricted tender procedure is conducted in two stages; Selection Stage and Award Stage
Selection Stage
o The purpose of this stage is to assess those companies which have the broad capabilities
of delivering the contract.
o A Pre Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) is used and selection criteria contained within, to
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shortlist companies to take through to the Award Stage and receive the full Invitation to
Tender documents
This stage is open to any organisation which expresses an interest in the contract. They
will each be issued the PQQ for completion and return by the deadline
Timescale for the submission of PQQs is fixed by the EU. 37days from publication of the
contract notice in the OJEU– UoW benefits from 7 day reduction as contract notices are
submitted to OJEU electronically
Each submitted PQQ will need to be assessed against the selection criteria.
Must be minimum of 5 companies selected to the ITT / Award stage (if there are 5
acceptable PQQ submissions)
Permissible selection criteria:
o Legal status
o Financial capacity
o Technical and professional competence including ability (can be assessed by
past experience)
It is important to note that once criteria are assessed at the PQQ stage, they cannot be
revisited at the ITT stage.
The scoring and justifications for scores must be robust and will be disclosed to deselected suppliers upon conclusion of this Selection stage
This stage may require significant time commitment depending on the number of responses.
Award Stage
o At this stage we are assessing not whether the selected suppliers can do the job but in
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essence how well they will do it against our published Award Criteria – i.e which proposal
offers best economic value for money in terms of our criteria
This stage uses the Invitation to Tender document to invite those selected companies to
submit bids against our detailed specification and expectations.
Timescale for submission of tender responses is fixed by the EU. 40 days
Those short listed to proceed to this stage must all be treated equally and a level playing
field is applied at the start of this stage i.e even if one company scores higher than
another in the PQQ, once both are selected to proceed, these scores are not carried
forward but each response to the ITT evaluated on its own merits
Award criteria cannot duplicate information requested / assessed at the Selection Stage
Award criteria can be anything of relevance and importance to the contract depending on
the subject matter but typically would include Cost, Ability to Meet Specification, Quality
etc. Criteria must be proportional to the subject matter and value of the contract
It is important to consider when determining award criteria what is important for the successful
appointment of a contract and to be aware that upon making the decision to award the
contract to a particular supplier, full details of the evaluation of bids including scores,
justifications for scores and the relative advantages and characteristics of the winning bid will
be provided to each unsuccessful supplier. This is a mandatory requirement under
Procurement law and therefore the evaluation panel must ensure that evaluations are
conducted in a fair and transparent manner in line with the published award criteria.
Overview – Restricted Procedure
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Purchasing and Insurance Office
Restricted Procedure
Publish Contract Notice in OJEU
(PQQ questionnaire must be
finalised so can be issued upon
supplier expression of interest)
Deadline for receipt of completed
PQQs 37 calendar days from
date of contract notice (UoW can
reduce to 30 calendar days as
notices issued electronically)
Evaluate PQQs to determine
shortlist selected to Award
Stage. Communicate outcome
ITTs issued to selected suppliers
Deadline for submission of
Tender Proposals 40 calendar
days from issue of Invitation to
Tender document
Evaluate Tender Proposals /
conduct any tender clarifications
Complete evaluation to
determine winning proposal
Issue Award Decision
Notifications
(includes Standstill Notice)
Mandatory 10 calendar day
standstill period between
notification of award decision
and award of contract / contract
commencement
Conclude contract making with
preferred supplier (subject to no
challenge)
Award Contract
Key
Publish Contract Award Notice in
OJEU and issue Notifications of
Award
Selection Stage
Award Stage
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