Tenders

Tenders

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Anyone experiance of tendering with the public or private sector ? If so where is the best place to look. We are only a small firm 12 staff and im keep to expand and was wondering if going down the tender road is the way to go ?

Regards

Mat

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David Winch
By David Winch
06th Jul 2009 22:41

Public sector
Mat

The goods news is that you may discover that, say, your local authority, has a policy of preferring local suppliers and small businesses in its purchasing (providing they are in a position to supply the appropriate quality of goods / services).

The bad news is that they may also have well-intentioned policies to promote best practice amongst their suppliers and to minimise the risk of corrupt purchasing practices within the authority. So they may require to check out your policies in areas such as health and safety and equality of opportunity (race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age) and they may require you do go through a formal competitive tendering process with sealed bids. There may even be a 'beauty parade' or other process designed to ensure that you can carry out the required work to an appropriate high standard.

You may also be obliged to carry a higher level of insurance cover than you normally maintain.

It is unlikely that any contract you obtain for work will simply be extended automatically without time limit. So you may have to go through the whole process again after, say, 3 years.

However local authorities differ markedly in their approach from place to place (and sometimes from department to department within the same authority).

A sensible option might be to phone the local authority for an informal chat about their needs and what you have to offer. You can then explore informally what their requirements of you are likely to be in some of these (dare I say, bureaucratic?) areas.

You may be surprised at the breadth of activities of a local authority. As just one example they may act as trustee / custodian of funds of incapacitated individuals - which might benefit from accountancy support, personal tax compliance services or audit.

Good luck

David Winch

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