subject: A guide to EU procurement [print this page] A guide to EU procurement A guide to EU procurement
If you want to earn income from delivering public services, you need to understand what commissioning and procurement involves.
Commissioning is the process public bodies use to assess the needs of people in the area, design the services to meet those needs and select an appropriate service to meet those needs.
Procurement is one of the options they may use for selecting who is going to provide the service. Another option might be to provide grant aid.
There are four main types of tender procedure specified by the EU.
Restricted procedure
This is the most common procedure. It is a two stage procedure, with bidders usually completing a pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) to determine their suitability. In evaluating the PQQ, the only criteria which may be used are economic or financial standing or technical knowledge or capability. Those selected are then invited to submit a tender to meet the service specification.
Open procedure
Any supplier can request a copy of the tender documents and then submit a response. This is not used very often as it is likely to produce a large number of bids that the public body has to evaluate.
Competitive dialogue procedure
This is designed to cope with particularly complex projects. Following a PQQ, the public body discusses the form of contract and the technical specifications of the project with at least three potential bidders before issuing the tender documents.
Negotiated procedure
This is only used in more complex projects where there may be a number of solutions that will meet the requirement or the overall price cannot be determined in advance.
