Our expert, Colin Mogford of Ashford Management, answers your queries about public sector tendering.
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Question:
As a new start company who have been trading a year now what steps should we put in place to position ourselves best to be eligible for public sector funding.
Colin Mogford replies:
As a company who has only been trading for one year it is highly unlikely that you could win a competitive tender until you have three years of audited accounts, as these are required to evaluate trading trends.
What you can do now is ensure that all of the mandated polices and procedures are in place as documents controlled to your organisation, have a formal quality assurance system in place and ensure that you have PI, PL and Employers Liability insurance in place to the values mandated by the contracting organisation
Ashford Management Limited offer a service to organisations who are considering bidding to evaluate the companies current position with regard to policies and procedures and advise them of the actions they need to take to make the organisation compliant.
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Question:
Is there a yearly value below which you don’t have to tender? For example, I’ve just done a proposal to the value of £35K over three financial years i.e. less than £12K per year. Is this OK? What are the guidelines or does each council set their own parameters?
Colin replies:
There is not a yearly value identified, each contract is tendered in its own right with a risk analysis undertaken upon the company tendering to establish that they are not bidding for projects which are outside of their trading limits. i.e.: a company who turned over £100,000 would not be awarded a contract to the value of £500,00 as they would not be able to deliver the project of that value as it is outside of their trading capability.
The thresholds for tendering are as follows:
- £0 to £4,999 Purchase order
- £5,000 to £49,999 Mini tender
- £50,000 to £153,999 Full tender
- £154,000 upwards OJEU tender (OJEU are EU advertised contracts)
Sorry to say £12K is over the threshold for purchase orders so would have to go to tender anyway.
No each council does not set their own parameters, the thresholds are set by Central Government and have to be followed by all Public Sector Organisations who entering into competitive tendering, it should also be remembered that the Public Accounts Committee are charged with auditing all Public Sector organisation to determine that they are following the rules.
I hope this answers your question satisfactorily.
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