How to carry out early market engagement successfully

NB: This article was originally published on 30 June 2022. All information was correct at the time of writing, but may not be fully applicable following the introduction of the Procurement Act 2023.

Early market engagement provides the foundation for a successful procurement by helping buyers make fully informed decisions.

What is “early market engagement”?

Early market engagement (EME), also known as soft market testing, is the process of engaging with potential suppliers before you begin buying goods or services for your organisation. It gives suppliers the opportunity to both inform the specification and to get ready to meet the demand.

Taking the time to carry out EME and gather market intelligence is regarded as ‘best practice’ and recommended as part of the preparation process for any future contract, especially where procurements are complex or of significant value.

Why should you talk to suppliers before you buy?

EME enables you to ask suppliers questions on important issues or decisions which will help you to refine your requirement. It can help you gain a better understanding from the market about what is possible, for example what resources (such as staff, products or equipment) would be needed to fulfil a contract. 

Imagine procuring a very specialised asset or building, say a community swimming pool – EME could help you to understand the particular technical requirements of the project, as well as supplier interest and capacity. Suppliers should be able to give you a number of best practice examples to help you when designing your facility. For example, they may be able to advise you on which pool tiles to choose to maximise safety and thermal performance. They may also help you to identify suitable pool types and discuss any technical design issues you have ahead of putting your project out to tender.

EME also increases awareness and interest in your potential procurement and encourages competition, meaning that you will have more suppliers, products and services to choose from when you’re ready to tender.

EME can help you to:

  • openly and transparently discuss “the problem” and possible solutions
  • write clearer requirements to include in your specification and business case
  • encourage competition and ensure a good number of applications
  • gain a better understanding at an early stage of how much a contract could cost and how long it could take
  • explore any opportunities for delivering aspects such as innovation, social value or carbon net zero

How and when to talk to suppliers?

It’s a myth that it’s unethical to talk directly with suppliers about your requirements before launching a formal procurement process. 

You can engage with the market at any time as long as you comply with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, specifically Regulation 40 which states that ‘preliminary market consultation may be used in the planning and conduct of the procurement procedure, provided that it does not have the effect of distorting competition’. 

In practice, this means that you must ensure you don’t give any supplier a competitive advantage and that you must:

  • be open and transparent
  • maintain commercial confidentiality (such as respecting Intellectual Property Rights)
  • keep a record of discussions
  • ensure a process that is fair to ALL suppliers throughout the process
  • make suppliers aware that any resulting procurement will be conducted competitively

To be most effective, EME activities should begin at the concept stage. 

How to identify suppliers to engage with​​

There is no ‘right’ number of suppliers to speak to, and more isn’t necessarily better. As a general rule you should aim to speak to a wide range and mix of suppliers to represent a reasonable sample of the sector. 

If you have chosen to purchase through a framework, it is usually possible to carry out EME with the approved suppliers listed, as long as this has been specified as allowable by the Public Buying Organisation (PBO) responsible for the framework. 

For lower value or one-off purchases, for example if you are a school purchasing sports equipment, some simple internet research should be sufficient to identify potential suppliers. 

Remember that EME costs suppliers time, effort and money; they need to feel that this investment could be worthwhile, so try to keep the process proportionate to the scale and value of the project.

How to carry out early market engagement

It’s your responsibility as a buyer to decide how you’re going to run the EME process. For particularly sensitive or complex projects, you should seek commercial or legal advice before you start.

The more detail you can give to suppliers about your requirements the easier it will be for them to provide a thorough response. As a minimum, they would expect to know:

  • the background to your organisation and project
  • what you want to achieve from the contract
  • the location of the contract and an indication of timescales / duration
  • the dates for the conclusion of the EME process and for the submission of any information by suppliers

Obtaining information from suppliers

Processes that can be used to engage with the market vary from the transactional, such as emailed questionnaires, surveys or 1-2-1 meetings, through to more complex and collaborative supplier webinars, conferences or workshops.

CCS has a free eSourcing tool you can use for running procurements under our agreements. Using an eSourcing tool also allows you to ask suppliers questions in advance of a webinar or conference call with them in a more formal way that ensures transparency. 

The procurement process following EME

Once you’ve completed the EME process it’s essential that any information obtained does not unduly influence the procurement process that follows, for example that it:

  • is not used to discriminate for / or against any suppliers such as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), for example by writing your requirements in a way that unfairly excludes a particular supplier or favours one specific supplier
  • has not been acquired under “false pretences”, e.g. you shared information about your requirements with one supplier that you didn’t share with another supplier
  • could breach supplier commercial confidentiality

Finally, following the market engagement process it’s important to let potential suppliers know that you’ve heard and responded to feedback. Not only will this improve the market interest in the procurement process for the specific project, it will also encourage higher levels of engagement in future market engagement processes.

Find out more

Download our latest digital brochure for the latest information on our agreements and how we can help you add power to your procurement.

More: You can now find all of our Procurement Essentials articles in one place on our website. 

New and improved payment solutions coming soon

Whether it’s a cost effective, secure and efficient way to pay for goods and services, or a way to issue funds quickly to civilians, our new Payment Solutions 2 agreement will have you covered. 

In response to customer and market feedback, we are pleased to confirm that procurement cards (purchasing cards – physical and virtual), prepaid cards and vouchers will all be available through the new agreement.  

With both direct award and further competition options, the agreement will make it even easier for you to access the solutions you need.

It is expected to be available from December 2022.

Find out more about the fantastic range of features and benefits Payment Solutions 2 will offer.

Cumbria County Council develops open source website publishing platform to help local authorities deliver digital transformation

Background

Using a grant from the Local Digital Collaboration Unit’s Local Digital Fund, Cumbria County Council took on the lead role for the beta phase of the LocalGov Drupal project.

LocalGov Drupal is a community of developers, content designers and digital leaders from local councils across the UK. They have collaborated to develop a best practice, open source website publishing platform that is freely available to all UK councils, creating public digital assets for the benefit of all.

The community aims to create sector-wide digital transformation by developing a shared pool of code, resources, research and expertise, helping councils to deliver the best possible digital experience for citizens, and to reduce the risks and costs associated with developing council websites. 

The solution

Throughout the development of the LocalGov Drupal project, the team has consistently used our Digital Marketplace to identify and procure the innovative technology suppliers they needed to deliver different aspects of the project.  

The marketplace enables public sector buyers to find technology or people for their digital projects quickly, easily, and efficiently. Users are able to access everything from data centres to cloud hosting to individual technology specialists such as developers or user researchers. 

As Project Lead, Will Callaghan explains.

The Digital Marketplace enables us to undertake a quick and simple procurement exercise. It’s easy to use, the shortlisting process is clear and we have always received good submissions from suppliers.

Challenges

Working with the multiple stakeholders and partners involved in the project has meant reconciling many different perspectives and requirements. Using a tried and tested solution like the Digital Marketplace, with a range of pre-approved suppliers available, provided the project team with a high level of confidence that they would be able to secure good outcomes. The alternative route of conducting an open market procurement was perceived as riskier and a potential drain on project resources which could instead be concentrated on getting the best possible result and delivering at pace.

The outcome

The LocalGov Drupal project can now count 28 councils and 8 suppliers among its growing community. The project has built a reusable council website codebase that can be set up in days instead of months and can evidence an 80% saving on development costs for a typical council website. With the latest funding from the Local Digital Fund, the team is working on microsite functionality that councils can use to create any spin-off website that they may need.

May-N Leow, Head of the Local Digital Collaboration Unit, said”

The LocalGov Drupal project is redefining how local authorities can partner with suppliers to deliver open source solutions with a business and operating model that not only gives councils ownership of what is developed but leverages suppliers to offer different levels of platform hosting and service.

Cumbria County Council itself has gained significant benefits from the project with Simon Higgins, Assistant Director of Customer and Community Services commenting:

The impact of LocalGov Drupal on our website and operations has been huge. We’ve started to see customer focused content and design that allows residents to access services and complete their business far faster than they could before.

To find out more visit the LocalGov Drupal website.

How we can help you

To find out more about how the Digital Marketplace and our other technology solutions could help to support your digital transformation projects, you can:

Barts NHS Trust use our Spend Analysis and Recovery Services solution to reclaim £100,000

The requirement

Barts Health NHS Trust sought an accounts payable review to identify and recover overpayments that had escaped its own robust internal systems and processes. 

The Trust processes a high volume of supplier invoices and conducts self-checks, regularly undertaking reviews with the National Fraud Initiative (NFI).

However, the Trust understood that overpayments are not always recognised or voluntarily declared by suppliers and that precious funds can be lost permanently if left unclaimed or if the supplier goes into liquidation. 

An accounts payable review is a risk-free mechanism to identify and recover any overpayments that have been missed through conducting an in-depth and thorough analysis of accounts payable transactions and payments.

As this is a time-consuming and resource intensive process to conduct in-house, Barts sought specialist support. 

The solution

Barts Health NHS Trust used the CCS Spend Analysis & Recovery Services solution to award their contract to Rockford Associates Limited.

Rockford first extracted 3 years of transaction data from the Trust’s accounts payable system. The process was easy and straightforward and no scripting or software development was required. The data was quickly uploaded to the supplier’s secure share file site and they then used their own data mining software to conduct the initial analysis.

A Senior Recovery Auditor was sent to the trust to deliver a full end-to-end review. With access to mail, systems and scanning, the auditor identified, verified and recovered a number of overpayments. 

The review consisted of a statement review together with a detailed analysis of Rockford’s bespoke software-generated reports. The service was delivered both on-site and remotely with minimum disruption to the Trust’s accounts payable and finance teams.

The Trust had previously used the services of Rockford in 2013 and it was further reassured that it could again easily engage Rockford’s specialist NHS AP Recovery Services through our Spend Analysis and Recovery Services solution.

The results

The Trust’s approach to financial transparency yielded positive results:

  • The supplier analysed over 645,000 past transactions from the Trust’s Oracle Finance System. 
  • The review identified, verified and recovered 82 exceptions, delivering a 6 figure sum which translated into more investment in patient care and services.
  • The Trust welcomed Rockford’s independent validation and positive reassurance that 99.99% of transactions were processed correctly by invoice value and 99.98% by invoice volume.
  • A detailed Findings and Recommendations report was produced to help prevent future overpayments
  • Rockford further identified 11,847 inactive suppliers, assisting the Trust to maintain an accurate supplier database 

Jasmine Lee, Associate Director Financial Services, Barts NHS Trust, said:

Barts NHS Trust is committed to ensure high standards of corporate governance and personal behaviour are maintained in the conduct of the business of the Trust. A main selling point of the service was that Rockford did the legwork in getting the cash physically back for us. That was a valuable resource to us. The engagement provided an independent reassurance and positive validation that our systems and processes are working well. The review was delivered promptly and efficiently with minimum disruption to day-to-day business productivity. We will happily recommend Rockford’s Accounts Payable review to any NHS Trust or other body considering a review.

Ray Dorney, Director, Rockford Associates Limited, said: 

The outcome with Barts NHS Trust is rewarding for both parties. Our relationship has spanned a decade or more and has always proved mutually beneficial. The Trust’s professional approach to financial transparency and the behaviours supporting that process has resulted in significant cash recoveries via Rockford’s specialist NHS accounts payable recovery review.

Get involved

Our Spend Analysis and Recovery Services solution, available under lots 15-19 of our Debt Resolution Services agreement, offers the public sector a chance to recover money and put it to use.

Find out how we can help you:

CCS awards major new ‘social value-enabled’ facilities management framework

Updated: September 2023

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has awarded 44 suppliers places on its major new Facilities Management and Workplace Services framework.

The new framework supports the principles of the Government’s Sourcing Playbook by heavily weighting ‘quality’ in its contract award criteria, rather than lowest cost – emphasising the importance of social value and optimum pricing methodology for often complex requirements.

It replaces CCS’s Facilities Management Marketplace agreement, which delivered commercial benefits, including savings, of around 10% for public sector customers procuring standard facilities management services. 

Noreen Winhall, Commercial Director, Buildings at Crown Commercial Service says:

The Facilities Management and Workplace Services framework is a key part of our suite of buildings frameworks. We can support our customers through the whole lifecycle of a major project – from inception, through facilities management, to demolition, aggregating public sector buying power to grow the UK economy. 

The new framework has the Government’s latest policy priorities baked in, enabling better outcomes on key social value priorities like modern slavery, providing opportunities for SMEs and VCSEs, and carbon reduction.

Enabling social value

In response to the increased emphasis on social value in public procurement, CCS has developed metrics to support suppliers to report on the social impact of their work.

As well as being required to attend regular, structured meetings with their customers, suppliers will submit quarterly returns to CCS showing how they are adhering to, as a minimum, baseline requirements for social value activities including  SMEs, under-represented groups, and apprenticeships.

9 of the awarded suppliers are SMEs, with more expected to join a ‘sister’ Dynamic Purchasing System when it opens in October.

Visit our social value webpage or get in touch with our expert team to find out more about social value and how it’s embedded into our agreements.

More: You can now find all of our Procurement Essentials articles in one place on our website.

Get in touch

To find out more, visit the Facilities Management and Workplace Services agreement page.

Changes to our agreements in May

Welcome to our monthly framework update to help you with your procurement planning. We will publish it online each month and also share it in our newsletters and on our social media channels.

The update provides a brief summary of what has been awarded, extended or expired during the previous month. It also outlines what is due to expire in the next 3 months.

You can also get an overview of all of our live frameworks in our interactive digital brochure.

Agreements awarded in May  

  • No agreements were awarded in May

Agreements extended in May

  • No agreements were extended in May

Agreements that expired in May 

  • RM6003 Media Buying (link unavailable)

Agreements due to expire in the next 3 months

Further information

If you need further details about any of these agreements please get in touch.

You can also find out what new procurements we are working on by exploring our upcoming deals page.

If you don’t currently receive our monthly customer newsletter why not also subscribe to receive these updates and more directly to your inbox? Just fill in this short form.

Modular Buildings framework helps provide shelter to the homeless

The requirement

Reading Borough Council had an urgent need  to provide safe and secure accommodation for their homeless population during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The solution

Reading Borough Council used our Modular Building Solutions framework to source a supplier who could fulfil their immediate need to support homeless individuals. 

Integra successfully secured the contract. They demonstrated strong awareness of the requirement and the ability to design a well thought out dwelling plan. This was shown by their implementation of a similar award-winning programme for Launchpad, a Reading based homelessness prevention charity. 

The results 

Integra built 40 modular facilities that included a bed, private washing facilities, heating and equipment such as a kettle, toaster and TV. Caseworkers were on call 24 hours a day to provide residents with comprehensive and extensive assistance.

The occupants were extremely happy with their newly constructed homes which would ensure they remained warm and safe through the winter and beyond. The new site was managed by the homeless charity St Mungo’s, who also provided support to residents. 

Reading Borough Council’s lead member for housing, Ellie Emberson said: 

It is so meaningful that we were able to give 40 residents who had been rough sleeping around Reading the opportunity to have their own place with valuable on-site support.

We know homelessness needs a partnership approach and through our joint working with St Mungo’s we are offering high-quality transitional housing with the needed support.

This is an innovative way to tackle homelessness with new residents sharing positive comments about the opportunity this presents them by getting off the street.

Add power to your procurement with CCS

Our Modular Buildings Solutions framework provides a wide range of major and minor building and civil engineering projects. To find out more about how we can help you build a stronger future: 

7 customers save £1.7 million on mobile voice and data services

The requirement

Buying mobile voice and data services is often a routine purchase for many customers, regularly resulting in varied contract end dates from having to acquire individual mobile phones at different times. This can create a barrier to switching suppliers to gain a better value and quality service for customers.

At CCS, our technology aggregation team helps customers achieve savings by combining their mobile voice and data requirements with other organisations. 

The solution

In March 2022, we ran a further competition using  lot 6 of our Network Services 2 framework, in which 7 customers took part. Our mobile voice and data aggregations are run 3 to 4 times per year to offer best value to the customers considering price and quality as key factors. 

For each aggregation, we engage with the market to gauge interest in upcoming mobile voice and data aggregations. Based on approximate volumes, we identify minimum indicative savings and ceiling prices for customers who take part. These are guaranteed minimum savings that customers can expect to receive.

Our technology aggregation team then runs the aggregation, identifies the supplier who is able to offer the best quality and price for the requirements, and presents each customer with a standalone contract.

The results

The 7 customers who took part in this aggregation saved £1.7 million – an average saving of 73%. 

3 of these customers had also joined a previous aggregation, and despite the large savings achieved through their first aggregation, were still able to save an additional 68%. 

Angela Carroll, Category Manager (Digital & ICT), South Tyneside Council said:

South Tyneside Council joined a previous CCS aggregated procurement in 2018 and benefited from 42% savings, 4 years on and after joining another CCS aggregated procurement we have continued to benefit from a further 73% saving. This totals a saving of just over £317,000.

The aggregation team manage the process seamlessly and are always there to support and provide advice. The fully managed service, knowledge and resources from CCS allows the councils to not only save money but also save resources and time.

Let us bring power to procurement 

National further competitions are a tried and tested approach which continue to achieve significant savings for the public sector. Taking part in an aggregation means many of the usual further competition procurement steps are handled by CCS, saving you time and resources. We will draft all documentation, build the specification and run the procurement. 

Our next mobile voice and data services aggregation (NFC150) is now open for expressions of interest from customers. You have until 1 September 2022 to submit your requirements, with a formal contract award set to take place in November 2022. 

Visit our aggregation web page to find out more and view our customer webinar, or if you would like to take part, please complete our online form quoting ‘NFC150 mobile voice and data aggregation’ in the comment box and a member of our team will be in touch. 

To learn more about our Network Services 2 framework, please visit our framework page. 

CCS’ Public Sector Vehicle Hire Solutions framework leads the way in social value

Social value is any additional environmental, economic or social benefit provided by a supplier that is relevant to the subject matter of a contract. It is being increasingly recognised as a vital way to add value in public procurement.

In light of this, our new Public Sector Vehicle Hire Solutions (PSVHS) framework is a flagship for including social value in a centralised procurement. The framework provides clarity for suppliers and customers, while giving you the flexibility and freedom to decide how best to implement social value within your own supply chains.

What has changed at framework level?

CCS conducted our pilot procurement using a new approach which ensured only suppliers with a responsible attitude to key social value priority areas were awarded places on the PSVHS framework.

As part of the framework specification, CCS and our stakeholders developed a social value priority statement (‘the Statement’), which outlines a range of critical governmental targets that we require suppliers to support the public sector in working towards, in the following areas:

  • supply chain diversity
  • fair and ethical employment
  • environmental sustainability
  • modern slavery
  • community benefits

For this framework procurement, social value questions on the first three areas listed above accounted for 10% to 20% of the total available marks, with suppliers evaluated and scored against their current business processes and plans for improvement.

The invitation to tender also required suppliers to disclose their awareness of modern slavery in their supply chain. This is an important area for this framework to address because instances of modern slavery have been reported in the wider car wash market and suppliers need to valet cars regularly to ensure they are clean for the next customer. CCS will work with suppliers to address any labour risks identified in their supply chains throughout the life of the agreement.

How are customer call-offs different?

We have given you choice and flexibility at the call-off stage to choose which elements of social value to focus on to best meet your organisation’s priorities by opting for one of the three approaches below:

  1. Supplier proposal – you ask suppliers to outline what they can deliver to support the Public Sector in meeting the Statement’s priority areas in general, including a commitment to self-proposed targets.
  2. Customer led – you pick specific targets from the five policy areas in the Statement for suppliers to focus on. Selection questions ask suppliers how they will meet the specific targets.
  3. Customer plus – you evaluate suppliers on different social value deliverables which are based on your specific organisation’s priorities.

What’s happening with supplier management?

At CCS, we appreciate that commitments made in a tender are only part of the jigsaw and that performance must be monitored in order to deliver real benefits.

At the call-off level, KPIs are in place requiring suppliers to provide you with an annual delivery statement detailing how they are meeting the agreed social value commitments.

Suppliers must also submit an annual report to CCS outlining their social value delivery across all call-offs.

During this framework, we aim to learn from what our suppliers do well and use our market position and expertise to establish best practices which will help all CCS suppliers to improve social value delivery in the future.

If you’d like to get in touch with us about social value or vehicle hire please email the team or call 0345 410 2222.

Customer newsletters for March

Welcome to our monthly newsletters. You can read the latest news most relevant to the sector your work in by selecting the appropriate link below:

If you don’t currently receive our monthly customer newsletter, you can sign up by completing this short form. Each month, we’ll send you the newsletter most relevant to you, based on your organisation.

You will also find a full list of all the commercial agreements we offer, alongside details of how we can help you build policy considerations into your procurement, in our interactive digital brochure.