16 September | Adviser Q&A

Our customers want a presentation stage worth 30 per cent of the invitation to tender. We can’t do this at pre-qualification questionnaire stage because we are getting 60-plus responses. What is recommended – and within the rules?

Director of procurement, Coventry

Ohad Soudry

Senior Associate, Hammonds

The problem with using a presentation as an award criterion is that, in the absence of clear sub-criteria and evaluation methodology, there is a risk that it will confer an unrestricted freedom of choice on the contracting authority to assess the presentation.

It may also be difficult for the contracting authority to demonstrate the regulatory requirement that the presentation is related to the subject matter of the contract and aimed at identifying the “most economically advantageous tender”.

The Procurement Lawyers’ Association has recently said that interviews/presentations should be limited to cases where they are necessary to be assessed as a separate qualitative criterion or when criteria can only be assessed by this means.

If necessary, use “presentations” as aids to evaluation of one or more specific award criteria, rather than as a separate award criterion in itself. To remain on the safe side you may want to disclose any questions in advance and identify the separate marks and scoring mechanism to be used.

Andrew Shorter

Senior procurement manager, London Borough of Newham

The PQQ stage is designed to weed out unsuitable firms and leave you with a select tender list. Presentations are not appropriate at this stage.

A presentation and interview stage is a perfectly acceptable part of a tender process, best held after the bids have had their paper and cost evaluation completed. It is normal to ask the top three scorers to present at interview and respond to questions. In reality you will need to ask all firms whose score is such that the addition of any presentation marks could enable them to win (likely, if it is worth 30 per cent).

The presentation can be made to your customers, who may then ask follow-up questions and contribute to the scoring. Any formal, follow-up interview should be undertaken by the evaluation panel, on which the customers can also have a representative member.

Presentations should be strictly timed and the topic clearly identified to ensure equality of opportunity to all participating bidders.

Be careful not to materially change the tender process as it has been advertised. The procedure you use for presentation and interview needs to be clearly identified in all of your tender and pre-selection documents.

Peter Micklewright

Director, Fulcre Partners

There is little guidance for purchasers on using presentations at the ITT stage. To my knowledge it is not prohibited by OJEU rules and could even be considered good practice to provide a better view of a supplier’s capability.

But if the evaluation criteria detailed in the original OJEU notice did not mention a presentation as part of the process then it may not be possible to introduce a presentation, unless all suppliers agree.

A proposed 30 per cent of the evaluation attributed to the presentation is high (although it has happened). Unless carefully managed it could lead to a very subjective decision by the evaluators and could result in a challenge by an unsuccessful bidder. We would suggest this figure is reduced to 10 to 15 per cent, which would still enable it be a significant factor in the overall weighting.