Bidding for business
Individual policy teams procure contracts for the majority of educational services and programme expenditure. Suppliers interested in specific areas of education should contact the relevant policy team directly. If you don’t know who to contact, contact the public communications unit.
New requirements are usually advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union OJEU) and/or the national or trade press as appropriate.
Major running cost purchases (such as IT, consultancy and estates) are procured by central teams on behalf of the Department.
Free course to help smaller firms bid for Government contracts
A free online public procurement course, designed to help smaller firms bid for the £220 billion of public sector contracts awarded each year, has been launched jointly by Small Business Minister Lord Davies and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne.
The course, ‘Winning the Contract’, shows participants how to identify business opportunities to supply goods and services to the public sector, explains the public procurement process, and demonstrates how to submit tenders. It has helpful hints and tips to guide and inform businesses on the bidding process, and where to find public sector contract opportunities.
More information and details of how to access the course are available on the Winning the contract information sheet.
Preparing an effective tender
How you prepare and present your tender proposal can be a crucial factor in securing a contract.
The following guidance is designed to help you understand how to create a winning tender:
- Read the Invitation To Tender (ITT) properly - preparation is the key so understand fully what is being asked of you.
- Respond in the required format - follow the layout requested, keep to the order for documents if one is given, send it to the person named and get the address right.
- Give full answers - this is your only chance, so give solutions and answer the whole question but be concise. If people have to work too hard to find the answer, it can create the wrong impression.
- Be upfront - our ITT will be as honest about the requirement as possible. In return, we look for honest bids with no hidden costs. Organisations that make money through contract variations have a short shelf-life in the Department.
- Tell us If you decide not to answer an invitation to tender. We can then learn from that for future requirements.
- Time is of the essence - plan ahead to ensure you meet the deadline. Timing can be critical in the Department and if you can't meet the bid delivery deadline we may worry about what other deadlines you may miss.
- Debrief or not debrief - if you don't quite make it this time ask why. You can learn for next time.
- Bulky bids mean freebie advertising - don't use the bid as a vehicle to issue glossy brochures about your organisation. It's a waste of your money and our time.
Like all Government departments, our procurement exercises have no hidden agenda. All we want is to identify suppliers who can work with us to help us achieve our business objectives. Following these guidelines gets you off onto the right foot with us.
Tender evaluation
Your bid will be successful if it offers the Department the best value for money.
Detailed evaluation criteria for assessing bids will be included in your invitation to tender letter. All bidders are assessed against the same criteria.
We aim to award a contract as soon as possible following completion of the assessment process. This might involve attending an interview, where you will be given the opportunity to present your bid in more detail and be questioned by a panel of officials about certain aspects of it.
Debriefing
Within the limits of some commercial confidentiality, the Department will always offer to explain to unsuccessful tenderers why their bid was unsuccessful. This can be by letter, phone or in person.
Debriefing should be viewed as a two-way process. Our comments are designed to be constructive and to draw your attention to certain weaknesses (and strengths), so that you can better compete for future work.
Department contract terms and conditions
If you would like to know which terms and conditions apply when bidding for a particular contract, contact the person named in the advertisement and tender documentation.
Due to the complexity of the majority of the Department’s requirements, contract terms and conditions are compiled on a case-by-case basis. However, most are based on our standard terms and conditions, which you can download.
