About the Book
Compulsory competitive tendering is being extended from functional council services, such as refuse collection, into professional services. This book provides detailed guidance on how to tender for work in the following management areas: sports and leisure, theatres and arts facilities, libraries, parking, architecture, engineering, housing and property management, legal services, financial services, personnel, computer services, and corporate and administrative services. The first area to be affected will be legal services, and councils will be obliged to subject a third of their legal work to competitive tendering by October 1995. Ministers expect authorities to begin seeking tenders for the first services in summer 1994. This book is a practical, detailed and comprehensive guide to the system, its framework, legal requirements and documentation. Due to its looseleaf format, it will be able to react to changes and developments as they occur. Considering the perspective of both the local authority and the contractor, "Competitive Tendering for Professional Services" provides information needed to successfully negotiate the tendering process.
The book also covers all aspects of CCT for professional services including: advertising, preparation of contract, documentation, the selection procedure, awarding the contract, administering the contract and monitoring the contract. It provides coverage of the contractor role in the tendering process with particular emphasis on preparing to bid, also coverage of Trading Accounts, Direct Services Organisations and submitting the bid. The inter-relationships with the European Community Public Procurement Regime is also discussed.
Table of Contents:
Part 1 Activities defined: sports and leisure management; theatres and arts facilities management; libraries management; parking management; architecture services; engineering services; personnel services; housing and property management; legal services; financial services; computer services; corporate and administrative services. Part 2 Contractor preparation for the CCT: general preparation; organization; training; business plans; quality assurance; management information systems; service level agreements; financial systems; reporting; personnel issues; submitting the bid - preparations for tendering, clarifying the tender documents, staff and trade union consultation, the bidding process, contents of the bid, financial services, support services, quality; golden rules of tendering. Part 3 The pre-tendering phase from the authority's viewpoint: how externalization sits alongside compulsory competition; preparing for white collar CCT - the authority's role, training, organization, management information systems, quality assurance, personnel implications, service level agreements; contract strategies - packaging of works into contracts, pricing, control over service providers. Part 4 The principles of tenderer selection and tender evaluation: legal framework; adopting a policy; choosing the tenderers - strategy, technical suitability, financial suitability, interviews; tender evaluation - compliance with conditions of tender, technical suitability, guarantees, health and safety issues, quality assurance, race relations, environmental issues, interviews and presentations, financial factors, loss leader bids; the decision. Part 5 What's needed in the documentation: specification; advertisement; questionnaire; instructions to tenderers; conditions - payment provisions, termination and default provisions, arbitration clauses, staffing matters, insurance and liabilities, variation clauses; pricing; ancillary documentation - performance bond, licence or tenancy agreement, covering letter, form of agreement, requirements of EC public procurement regime. Part 6 After the tender process: client administering the contract - implementation, variations, monitoring; contractor compliance - working under the contract, variations, working to budget, municipal trading, trading with the public sector, work for other authorities, working for the private sector; challenge - anti-competitive behaviour, contract compliance, challenge under CCT legislation, judicial review; transfer of undertakings regulations; inter-relationship with the EC public procurement regime.
