July customer newsletter

Welcome to our July customer newsletter – read it here.

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 our latest news stories and case studies, as well as information on upcoming aggregation opportunities, events, webinars and much more.

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.

Changes to our agreements in June

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 June

No agreements were awarded in June.

Agreements extended in June

Agreements that expired in June

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.

How to evaluate bids in procurement

NB: This article was originally published on 17 January 2022. All information was correct at the time of writing, but may not be fully applicable following the introduction of the Procurement Act 2023.

However complex the contract, a well-planned and transparent bid evaluation process is essential in achieving the right procurement outcome.

Here’s our guide on how to get it right.

How to carry out the bid evaluation process

Bid evaluation takes place after the deadline passes for tender submissions. It involves the examination of bids to identify a preferred supplier. 

A thorough approach is required throughout the process to ensure all bids are treated fairly and equally, and the correct conclusions are reached after balancing all your criteria. A poorly planned and executed process could derail your procurement and lead to expensive legal challenges. 

Make sure you consider all of the following factors: 

The role of evaluators

Firstly, take time to choose the right evaluation team for your procurement. Small groups work better than just 1 person, bringing a balanced perspective to the scoring process. Ideally you should include a combination of financial, technical, and purchasing expertise within your team.

For most people, taking part in an evaluation process is a step away from their day job.  Providing sufficient training and guidance from the outset will help ensure a successful outcome.

Start by making sure your evaluators are clear on the bid evaluation process and what your requirement is. At least one member of the evaluation team, usually the procurement lead, should be well trained on compliance and the core principles of The Public Contracts Regulations (PCR) 2015. These are concerned with fairness, transparency and equal treatment of suppliers. 

The procurement lead should also ensure compliance with your organisational policies. 

Confidentiality, equality and conflicts of interest

All evaluators must be aware of the importance of confidentiality. For example, not sharing documentation with third parties and knowing how to transmit emails and electronic documents securely. They must also know the importance of treating bidders fairly and equally and putting all preconceived ideas (unconscious bias) to one side. 

You’ll need to demonstrate that your evaluation methods used were fair in the event of any Freedom of Information request being received.

Finally, consider the need for your evaluators to complete a conflict of interest form at the start of the process, particularly for politically sensitive or complex contracts.  

Record keeping/audit trail

Keeping a thorough and well-documented evidence trail is the only way to have a transparent justification for awarding the contract to a bidder and to provide a full debrief to unsuccessful bidders. Your record keeping needs to provide clear evidence to show:

  • how the award criteria has been considered
  • how the scoring methodology has been applied
  • reasons for the evaluator’s decision

It is a legal requirement to keep all records for a minimum of 3 years from the date of contract award. 

Our eSourcing Tool enables Crown Commercial Service customers to conduct their procurements electronically and ensure an audit trail is maintained.

Score allocation

Scores should be allocated in accordance with your award criteria set out in the tender documents. A copy of your criteria and scoring approach should be kept on hand by evaluators to refer to throughout the process. 

The scoring stage usually focuses on 2 components – price and quality. The scoring and weighting for each component can vary from tender to tender depending on your requirement. Numerous scoring methods have been developed to evaluate bids. You’ll need to determine which scoring method is best suited to your project. 

It should be clear to evaluators what each score represents in order to ensure consistent application. Avoid using descriptions which are open to interpretation, e.g. “1 = Below Par” or “0 = Unacceptable”. A more effective scoring document would read “1 = Insufficient evidence that the contract can be fulfilled; evidence is weak and / or incomplete” and that “0 = No evidence that they have the expertise or experience required to fulfil the contract”.

Evaluators must ensure that each tender submission is assessed against these evaluation criteria only. They should be objective and not award scores based on comparing tenders against each other.

Bid clarification

This is contact between buyer and bidder to address aspects of the tender which are unclear. At this stage the bidder may be asked to clarify or complete the relevant information.  Clarification is not an opportunity for bidders to improve their bids. It must not provide a competitive advantage to a particular supplier. 

Make sure the evaluators are clear on your clarification process and how to record clarification questions and answers. There should be a single approved communication route for all clarification correspondence with suppliers.

Finally, clarification questions and answers should always be included within the final contract to ensure they’re legally binding.

Moderation

Once individual scoring is complete, evaluators should send their scores and evaluation reports to a moderator for review. The moderator should be someone who has not been part of the original evaluation team. They should ideally possess strong facilitation skills.

Individual evaluators may come to different scoring conclusions. The purpose of the moderation process is to review these independent evaluation scores to reach a consensus. 

The moderation process should not be closed until all evaluators and the moderator are satisfied with the scoring. 

Finalising the process 

Once an award decision has been made then all bidders, successful and unsuccessful,  must be notified in writing, containing the information required by PCR 2015. 

A mandatory 10 day standstill period then follows. This gives unsuccessful bidders an opportunity to consider feedback, request further information or call for a review of the decision.

During the standstill period, a single point of contact is critical. Other members of the evaluation team should not engage in direct communication with any bidder. 

Completing an evaluation report

Finally, you should always prepare an evaluation report which records the outcome and captures any evidence supporting your scores. This ensures that the process is properly recorded and can stand up to both internal and external scrutiny.  

Find out more

See the government guidance note for further information on bid evaluation. More information and guidance for public and third sector buyers, as well as full details of all of our commercial agreements, can be found in the latest CCS digital brochure.

More: Frameworks help public and third sector buyers to procure goods and services. Find out how.

When and how to run a further competition in procurement

NB: This article was originally published on 27 May 2023. All information was correct at the time of writing, but may not be fully applicable following the introduction of the Procurement Act 2023.

Running a further competition ensures you get the best solution and competitive pricing for what you need. 

As discussed in a previous article in this series, frameworks help public and third sector buyers source goods and services from a list of pre-approved suppliers, with agreed terms and conditions and legal protections. 

Once you’ve decided that using a framework is the best way for your organisation to buy what you need, you can ask all the suppliers listed on it to bid. This process is called a further or mini-competition and can be run under most frameworks. Please check the customer guidance for each framework.

Why run a further competition?

Frameworks provide specific goods or services but individual customer needs may vary, which makes it difficult for suppliers to provide a ‘one size fits all’ approach to pricing and requirements. 

Further competitions enable you to outline your own specific requirements and identify the best solution for your organisation. Suppliers can then consider your requirements and submit a bid that outlines how exactly they can meet your needs. 

When should you run a further competition?

Further competitions work best for more complex goods and services. For example, installing fire protection sprinklers and alarms within a school or a refurbishment or construction project. 

They don’t work for low-value, ad-hoc purchases, where the time and cost of running a further competition is disproportionate to the goods and services supplied. For example, a school or college purchasing one-off tail spend items such as a box of calculators or sports equipment. They are also not ideal when you have urgent requirements, because of the time it can take to complete the process.

In some instances, you can choose to place a direct award without further competition. This is only possible where it is stated as an allowed option in the guidance notes for the framework.

For some agreements, such as a Dynamic Purchasing System, there is no direct award option and you can only award a contract following a further competition.

How to get it right

Running a further competition can be daunting if you’ve never done it before, and it’s not part of your normal day to day job. 

Here are our top tips on how to make the process easier:

Stage 1: define your requirements and invitation to tender

The first step in the process is to do your research and determine exactly what you want to achieve from the contract. This is your opportunity to set out your specific requirements. For example, how long do you want the contract with the supplier to last? Is it a one-off purchase or a long-term arrangement? 

Your specification shouldn’t significantly change what suppliers originally signed up to provide when bidding to join the framework, but it will enable you to detail what you need, when and how. Read more about writing a specification.

You’ll also need to prepare an Invitation to Tender (ITT) along with a draft contract and specification (which may be provided in template format as part of a framework’s schedules). An ITT is a formal procurement document that is issued by the buyer, inviting suppliers to bid. Your ITT should include:

  • a covering letter
  • a timetable
  • how to ask questions
  • how to submit a bid
  • your specification 
  • your award criteria
  • specific levels of service you want
  • your terms of appointment

Tip: Make sure you allow sufficient time for suppliers to respond to your further competition. This way you’ll get more (and better quality) responses. Three weeks is generally considered to be the minimum timescale required for a supplier to respond to an ITT. 

Stage 2: invite suppliers on the specified framework and lot by issuing the ITT, requirements document and draft contract

At this stage, and using the example of a school construction project, it might be beneficial to allow the potential suppliers to carry out a site visit so that they can assess the work that needs to be done. 

Tip: If you want to find out how many suppliers are interested in bidding then you can send an expression of interest (EOI) to them all. After doing this, you only need to send your ITT to suppliers who responded. Check the framework rules first – not all of them allow this.

Stage 3: evaluate suppliers’ responses

When the deadline for submissions has passed, you can begin to evaluate the supplier responses. Your chosen supplier should be the ‘most economically advantageous’ – the one that best combines price and quality (and, for some frameworks, social value). 

Make sure you don’t deviate from the award criteria that you previously set in your ITT (and that are set out for competitions in the framework). This makes sure you are  fair and transparent and helps avoid any potential challenges.

Tip: Make sure your evaluators are clear on the bid evaluation process from the start and what your requirement is. 

Stage 4: award a contract to the successful supplier and notify unsuccessful suppliers

You should now be able to identify a winner from the scores you’ve given at the evaluation stage. At this point it’s time to notify all the suppliers of the result. 

The most appropriate way to do this is by letter. Some CCS frameworks have example letters that you can use. 

Tip: The award letters and letters to unsuccessful bidders should all be dispatched at the same time.

Stage 5: 10 day standstill period 

The standstill period should be at least 10 calendar days. During this time the contract award process is suspended. This gives unsuccessful bidders an opportunity to consider feedback, request further information or call for a review of the decision. 

Once the standstill period has passed you can begin your contract with the winning supplier.

Speak to your commercial team / legal advisors if you need advice to decide if this is appropriate for your procurement or not.

Tip: During the standstill period, a single point of contact is critical. Other members of your evaluation team should not engage in direct communication with any bidder. 

Find out more

Read all of our Procurement Essentials articles in one place on our website. 

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

Driving towards net zero: top tips for building transport sustainability into your procurement

NB: This article was originally published on 3 April 2023. All information was correct at the time of writing, but may not be fully applicable following the introduction of the Procurement Act 2023.

Adapting your travel and transport procurement strategy can significantly impact the environment through helping staff, people and goods move around in an easier, healthier and more sustainable way.

Why procure your transport solutions sustainably?

Transport is the largest emitting sector of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the UK. It is estimated that poor air quality could cost health and social care services in England £5.3 billion by 2035.

There is huge potential for public sector transport procurement solutions to be a force for good. Tackling air pollution through increasing the efficiency of public and fleet travel, and encouraging the transition to cleaner modes of transport will create better places for us all to live and work in, with quieter and less congested streets. 

Practical steps to decarbonisation of transport

We know that building sustainability into your procurements and staying on track for net zero can be complex. Knowing where to start can be the biggest challenge. 

Begin with a deep dive into the interlinking elements of your transport emissions to help you assess what aspects of your procurement strategy can be altered to reduce the impacts of climate change, including:

Reviewing your fleet

As part of your fleet management you should regularly review your fleet size, vehicle types and fuel usage. Time invested in reviewing your fleet now and continuous monitoring will help to ensure you have an efficient, cost-effective, and low-emission fleet that is fit for the future.  

The alternatively fuelled vehicle market has grown extensively in recent years. As a result, you now have more vehicle choices, including hybrid, fully electric and other ultra low emission vehicles. Ask yourself which vehicles may be suitable for replacement with electric vehicles.

Fleet managers may wish to consider replacing diesel fleet with electric or hybrid ones to reduce carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) emissions per year.  For example, the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust replaced its diesel fleet with 51 RAV4 fully converted vehicles that are more environmentally efficient, yet equally capable of carrying crews and equipment. The Toyota RAV4 Hybrid was selected for its qualities to serve as a new rapid response vehicle for NHS paramedic teams. The Trust chose to use CCS (now GCA) to source the vehicles using the vehicle purchase framework agreement (RM6060). The new SUVs will be covering up to 40,000 miles a year, working the length and breadth of Wales. 

Once vehicles suitable for replacement with an equivalent zero-emission model have been identified, the next step is to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the switch on a whole life cost basis to formulate your procurement strategy. Our Fleet Portal can estimate whole life costs for fleets including its purchase or lease cost, residual value, maintenance costs, fuel costs, fuel consumption and taxation.

Make commuting and incidental miles less harmful

Simple solutions can help you make a bigger impact on incidental miles travelled for business and commuting or for journeys carried out in employee-owned vehicles, also known as grey fleet. You can maximise journeys and encourage electric vehicle use in a number of ways including:

  • making car share vehicles near convenient travel hubs and meeting spaces widely available
  • making newer and less harmful pool or daily rental vehicles readily available to more staff and at an appealing cost
  • installing telematics to collect and transmit data about the vehicle’s speed, fuel consumption, driver routes and behaviour
  • offering green car salary sacrifice schemes to employees as a benefit

A green salary sacrifice scheme gives employees access to newer, cleaner, safer vehicles, making commutes and incidental miles less harmful. Hiring newer vehicles also allows employees to choose a hybrid or fully electric vehicle.

For example, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest NHS trusts in the UK, accelerated their carbon reduction plans and fast tracking fleet electrification by offering a green employee salary sacrifice scheme to staff.  The Trust employs more than 14,000 staff and provides services across 7 key hospital sites, in addition to further settings across the local community

Create a scalable charging infrastructure to meet multiple user needs

With proper workplace charging implementation, employers can help increase the convenience and affordability of driving electric for their employees. Workplace charging can demonstrate a commitment to adopting advanced vehicle technologies.

Assess how your charging infrastructure can meet the needs of fleet users, employees, and the general public in various ways, including: 

  • providing dedicated networks for operational commercial vehicles 
  • facilitating in-car park / at work charging offerings for staff
  • adopting a hybrid approach using a charging infrastructure model that can also be made available to the general public at cost

Put innovative technology and data to work

Deploying innovative technology to do the work for you can help reduce carbon emissions. Across the UK, traffic management is helping tackle many sources of air pollution. SMART technologies can be used to incentivise and regulate driver behaviour and create Clean Air Zones to improve the air we breathe and how we navigate our cities. 

Using roadside furniture, such as number plate recognition, vehicle charging infrastructure, sustainable street lighting, and traffic monitoring CCTV systems, can further extend your green impact, helping to establish and maintain clean air zones.

We recently worked with Bristol City Council to introduce a clean air zone, which improved traffic flows and increased priority for buses at traffic signals. Innovative technology enabled enforcement of restrictions on the highest polluting vehicles and encouraged the use of cleaner vehicles and helped motivate people to walk, cycle or use public transport more.

Find out more

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

Download our updated Cityscape interactive guide to learn how small changes to the public sector’s transport and travel strategy can help us reach carbon net zero.

Our new offsite construction agreement has been awarded

The Offsite Construction Solutions (RM6184) agreement reflects continuous Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) innovations and will broaden the premanufactured building solution provision currently available to public sector buyers through CCS agreements. It will have an increased scope to include more MMC categories, specifically 2D panelised structural systems and panelised external building retrofits, as specified within the new MMC Definition Framework.

The agreement will continue to align with the policies outlined in the Construction Playbook on offsite construction adoption. It replaces our Modular Buildings Agreement, which closes on 1 April 2023. It has been designed to assist all public sector customers, with a specific focus on the health, housing, education, justice and defence sectors.

In a bid to help the public sector to continue to meet their carbon net zero targets, a specific lot (Thermal Efficiency Upgrades) has been introduced to address the increasing demand to retrofit existing estate portfolios with thermally efficient external systems.

The new agreement aims to build on the progress made on making it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to become suppliers. It includes 29 suppliers, 18 (62%) of which are SMEs. 

The agreement will run for 4 years with the possibility of a 3-year extension and there is no maximum duration for call off contracts

John Welch, Deputy Director – Construction, Crown Commercial Service says:

This new framework will support the public sector in the design, delivery and commissioning of a whole range of offsite construction projects in the coming years, including social housing, new schools and hospital extensions. These projects, and the many more which will come, have the potential to improve services and the lives of millions of people.  

“It is yet another example of how CCS is helping the public sector to support the government’s construction strategy and further supports the recently published refresh of the Construction Playbook with its MMC guidance note.

Innovations

  • a simple 6 lot structure, encompassing an increased range of premanufactured building turnkey solutions within a single, consolidated agreement
  • promotes the standardisation of building design across large portfolios of government infrastructure, therefore enabling greater efficiencies of time and cost savings through the project lifecycle, saving the taxpayer money
  • the new agreement aims to make it easier for clients to contract with SME organisations, with 62% of suppliers being classed as an SME. 
  • public sector contracting terms and conditions create an easier, more flexible route to market, tailorable to customers’ specific operational needs.
  • an evaluated pool of suppliers allowing customers to drive cost reductions and increase value for money through healthy competition

Lotting structure

The lots are:  

  • lot 1: Built Estate including Education
  • lot 2: Healthcare
  • lot 3: Residential
  • lot 4: Justice
  • lot 5: Defence
  • lot 6: Thermal Efficiency Upgrades

Find out more

To find out more about Offsite Construction Solutions (RM6184) visit the agreement webpage or contact the CCS Service Desk at info@crowncommercial.gov.uk or 0345 410 2222.

Don’t forget, you can 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.

Discover how 25,000 energy supplies were successfully transferred despite global pandemic

Background

CCS’s previous framework for electricity had expired and so a new framework was required. The new framework needed to provide customers with electricity along with invoicing and customer account management services as well as fully supporting CCS’s trading functionality by providing access to trading services, advisors and price to market options. 

After a successful tender process, EDF was named as the sole supplier to the Supply of Energy and Ancillary Services framework by CCS in August 2019 with the framework beginning in 2020, and customers transferring to become live on supply by 1 April 2021. 

The purpose of the new framework was:

  • to use CCS’s experience and collective buying power to help create a cost effective and reliable energy plan
  • to provide simple account management and invoicing
  • to help enable carbon reduction through the consumption Reduction Services and Renewable Energy Guarantee

EDF were successful in being awarded this framework and set about planning the switch over of customers which was due to begin in 2020.

Challenges

The transfer of 25,000 supplies across over 400 customers is no easy task, and if managed poorly it can have a significant impact on users and ultimately those who they provide services to. With their experience as well as their expertise, EDF successfully demonstrated their ability to complete this task and keep customers informed during the framework awarding process. 

What was not forecast when awarded was the crippling effect of the pandemic. Seven months after awarding this framework, the United Kingdom entered its first lockdown. This disrupted the roll out of this framework which included organisations switching energy providers. All this was to be done at a time when many public buildings were closed or struggling with staffing levels due to ongoing sickness and absence levels. 

Solution and implementation

In order to mitigate against potential disruption, EDF increased resource on the framework to ensure a successful transfer with negligible disruption. It formed a working group including more than 60 of their own staff which proved instrumental in delivering this framework under the most difficult of circumstances. 

EDF already knew that keeping customers informed and engaged throughout would be key to a successful rollout. By careful planning and engaging with customers, EDF oversaw and instigated over a quarter of a million exchanges of data between themselves, their customers and the previous energy provider. This proved vital to a smooth transition and delivery which saw minimum disruption of a key service. 

The end result saw 25,000 supplies across over 400 customers switch suppliers, with 98.7% of switches successfully completed by the target completion date, and the remaining customers saw their switch completed just a few weeks later. 

Anthony Fahey, Commercial Agreement Manager for CCS, said:

As this was a task that needed the outgoing supplier to work in tandem with the incoming supplier, I am proud of how all parties joined together to ensure the best experience and value was delivered for the public sector. The contracts CCS award provide the necessary terms and conditions to move the estate from one energy supplier to the other, but it is the relationships we build and the people that deliver the service that ensure the experience is as successful as this project shows.

Add power to your procurement with CCS

By bringing together customers with similar needs, our aggregations help you harness bulk buying power to unlock greater savings. CCS run these aggregations regularly, to ensure as many customers as possible are able to achieve similar savings.

By purchasing goods and services through our frameworks you can remove many of the usual procurement steps which will be handled by us, saving you precious time and resources. We draft all documentation, build the specification and run the procurement. 

Learn more about our Energy frameworks and how to get in touch with CCS.

Discover why UK Research and Innovation returns to CCS to support its sustainability plan

In 2021, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) furthered its sustainability goals using the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Heat Networks and Electricity Generation Assets (HELGA) agreement. The quick and simple procurement process allowed the UKRI estates and facilities management team to install two solar ultraviolet (UV) installations.

UKRI actively considers opportunities to further its sustainability strategy. So when unexpected funding became available, they needed to act quickly. They were able to capitalise on the opportunity and installed solar photovoltaic (PV) panels.

Solar projects can support electricity demand across an estate and generate potential income if exported back to the grid through an energy supplier. For example, ground-mounted and rooftop solar PV panels offer an economical alternative to generating electricity.

To take advantage of the funding, UKRI returns to use CCS’ HELGA agreement to complete two solar PV procurements, roof and ground mounted. Furthermore, the project was worth over £3.6 million.

Jonathan Smith, UKRI’s Commercial Business Partner responsible for Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Estates and Facilities spending, says:

We knew from the start that time was a critical factor. Using the CCS agreement allowed us to run an accelerated process while remaining compliant with the Public Contract Regulations

Learn how we added power to UKRI’s procurement

To learn why UKRI returns to CCS to further achieve sustainability goals:

Help evaluate our new Buying Better Food agreement

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) is looking for a group of evaluators to support the new Buying Better Food agreement, which is due to go live in spring 2024.

We invite you to participate in the evaluation of this procurement, which will consist of an independent evaluation followed by consensus meetings.

This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to a flagship commercial agreement that will provide significant benefits to the UK public sector. The experience as an evaluator will also help you strengthen your performance and progress in your career by gaining Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points.

The evaluation is currently scheduled as follows:

  • evaluator training: end July / early August
  • independent evaluation stage: end August
  • consensus stage: mid September

Should you wish to register your interest, please email food@crowncommercial.gov.uk. If you know colleagues or new starters within your organisation who may be interested, please share this information with them.

G-Cloud 13 framework extension

We will also be extending G-Cloud 13 Lot 4 through to 8 November 2024. We will issue a variation to the framework agreement for Lot 4, for your signature and return, in due course.

Information regarding G-Cloud 14 will be provided in the near future via the platform and the Upcoming Deals page. 

What you need to do

If you wish to remain as a supplier to G-Cloud 13 Lots 1-3, there is nothing further for you to do.  The variation to extend Lot 4 will follow shortly. 

If you no longer wish to be a supplier on G-Cloud 13 Lots 1-3 or Lot 4 beyond the expiry of the initial term, then please get in touch with us at info@crowncommercial.gov.uk

If you require further information regarding the G-Cloud 13 extension please email info@crowncommercial.gov.uk.