APPROPRIATE FIT PROCUREMENT
Functional Requirements Specification and Evaluation
Criteria for eTendering
Guideline
Appropriate Fit Procurement Guideline
July 2007
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APPROPRIATE FIT PROCUREMENT
Introduction
Scope
The purpose of this document is to provide an overview for public sector buying organisations to assist to
establish evaluation criteria when considering the selection of an e-Tendering and e-sourcing tools in the
UK public sector. The consolidated Directive and legislation for the devolved assemblies requires a
rigorous and robust approach to the procurement of an e-Tendering suite and e-Sourcing tools to be
undertaken.
Mandatory and desirable requirements for public sector
e-Tendering to ensure compliance to EU legislative requirements.
The “End to end” procurement process from a buyer AND supplier perspective.
To be delivered in “real-time” through a secure web based solution.
1. OJEU Contract Notice
2. Sub-OJEU advertisement
3. Supplier Registration
4. Supplier Expression of Interest
5. PQQ
6. PQQ Clarification
7. PQQ Evaluation
8. Shortlisting for ITT
9. ITT
10. ITT Clarification
11. ITT Evaluation
12. Award or Conversion to Auction
13. Award
14. Secure Storage & Exchange of award information
15. OJEU Contract Award Notice
Functional requirement specification to ensure compliance to EU public
sector procurement requirements and national legislative requirements :
1. Creation of OJEU Notices including live “eSender” integration with SIMAP (Official Journal of
European Union). Reason: removal of risk of delay in process, incorrect transfer of data and
incomplete electronic audit trail.
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2. Creation of contract opportunities listing area for OJEU / sub-OJEU requirements, including
automated linking of OJEU Notices to opportunity where appropriate to ensure “single point of
contact” approach.
3. Full support for ALL procurement activities from Sub-OJEU to OJEU procurement procedures.
4. Supplier self-registration based on organisation specific User Terms and Conditions (critical for
Expressing Interest, otherwise each buyer has to verify, authorise and grant access to suppliers
manually - potentially resulting in a non-auditable collection of Expression of Interest phase.
5. Fully integrated support of linkage from OJEU Notice to automated self-service supplier
"Expression of Interest" phase (for PQQ's within restricted procedure, ITT's within Open
procedure) with full non-repudiated audit stamps of registration by supplier.
6. Shortlisting audit trail between processes (eg: Shortlisting from PQQ to ITT with audit trail)
7. Official Shortening of timescales due to complete electronic procedure
8. Additional shortening of procurement timetable by allowing simultaneous publishing of PQQ or
ITT (within open procedure) at the same time as the OJEU notice. This allows the buyer exercise
the option to set the closing date for PQQ responses as parallel to closing date for Expression of
Interest. (since the information is available immediately to suppliers upon self-registration – and
critically, is down to suppliers to respond therefore NO possibility of buyers receiving EOI offline,
and not activating simultaneously….)
9. Set-up of multiple compliant public sector process types:
a. OJEU Defined processes with timescale defaults and warnings (eg: closing date of a PQQ
within a “Restricted Procedure” should be at least 37 days after publication.
b. (“Unsealed” - for sub-OJEU requirements et/c, “Sealed” or “Sealed with different
opening dates / stakeholders” (to allow for technical / commercial teams of evaluators
to open and evaluate separately without prejudice.).
c. Single buyer or Committee based opening procedures (to allow for strategic, sensitive
procurement exercises to have multiple people present prior to opening, eg: audit).
d. Full user right configuration available at system, procurement unit or individual user
level to allow for creation, viewing, editing and publishing rights definition by role.
e. Authorisation workflow of publication of PQQ / ITT's based on £ value and business unit
workflow to enable verification of processes prior to publication where appropriate. Can
be set by system, procurement unit or individual user level.
f. Full audit tracking of supplier response status from “Expression of Interest” stage to
publication.
g. Public sector handling of supplier responses (configurable at a procurement policy level
to address late responses et/c) with full audit tracking of opening procedures, who
opened what, when and which "envelopes" in which order.
h. Public sector compliant opening procedures, allowing for Qualification, Technical and
Commercial evaluations to be conducted together or separately by different
stakeholders.
10. Fully configurable public sector terminology ("Tenders, OJEU Notices, PQQ's, ITT's et/c).
11. Fully configurable system email alerts to public sector standards in compliance with areas such as
Alcatel "cooling off" periods. Developed in conjunction with European counsel, HM Treasury
solicitors, OSSE solicitors et/c.
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12. Creation of online web-form questionnaires in addition to attachments to allow for automatic
alignment and scoring of supplier responses.
13. Ability for Buyers AND suppliers to develop projects (or responses) offline and upload.
Particularly relevant for online web-forms.
14. Integrated Email audit trail and edit facility within each part of procurement (eg: ability to run
audit trail at single click regarding all messages sent / received / forwarded at each stage
of the process.)
15. Totally integrated eAuction facility with OGCbs public sector compliance including weighted
scoring.
16. Full integrated audit trail of processes for FOIA requests, internal audit or challenges from step 1
(OJEU Contract Notice) to the end (OJEU Award Notice)
17. Localised solution view for buyers and suppliers (dependant on where they are located, they
receive local time et/c)
18. Audit trail of any buyer amendments to supplier response scoring with audit trail
19. Full reporting by system, business unit, procurement project (tender), individual procurement
process (PQQ, ITT, eAuction et/c), buyer, supplier creating “drill down” analysis (eg: i) average
numbers of suppliers invited and responding to a projects at an organisation, business unit and
buyer level. ii) average timescale per individual procurement process (PQQ, ITT, eAuction et/c).
20. Collaborative Files / Forum area for secure document storage / exchange with explicit user rights
(Blind, view, edit, create et/c).
Due Diligence and Total Quality Management Methodology required for
an excellent e-Tendering and e-Sourcing service :
1) Economic and financial standing of the supplier. Business viability of the supplier in the long-run
(audited financial accounts).
2) Ongoing product development of e-Tendering and e-sourcing tools (roadmap / product
development)
3) Suitability for EU public sector procurements and national legislative requirements.
4) Security
5) Disaster recovery
6) Fallover
7) Helpdesk
8) Service Level agreements
9) Commitment to ongoing public sector development.
10) Direct relationship with solution provider rather than multi-stage removal.
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11) Personalised web-portal (for unique buyer organisation look and feel to outside supplier
community).
12) Personalised security accreditation to HMGovernment Information Security Level 3 for unique
site certification (with guaranteed continual independent verification, including staff background
checks)
13) Test (prep) site for local training, testing and upgrade staging et/c
14) Guaranteed upgrades (at least Twice per year) to continually address areas such as support /
enhancement requests, new OJEU developments et/c
15) Official "eSender status" Integration into SIMAP for end-to-end linking with OJEU Notices.
http://www.simap.eu.int/List%20of%20OJS%20eSenders/b8a68426-020a-9c5e-
19aef7640f8a3be1_en.html
16) Built in opportunity advertisements for OJEU or non-OJEU contracts, with automated links to
SIMAP for "single point of reference" where appropriate.
17) Unique help documentation / support with online tutorials
18) Public Sector compliant user terms and conditions for suppliers, developed with multiple legal
counsels across Europe.
19) Demonstrable implementation, delivery and project support capability of service provider
20) Pro-active User Forums’ to ensure continuous improvement of the solution and service whilst
sharing best practice and processes.
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