ESPD – WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW – European single procurement document

ESPD & Procurement policy – not the most known or thrilling of topics. We know that reviewing changes does not exactly make for riveting reading, so we have condensed this information into what you actually need to know.

Due to the European Public Procurement Reform which kicked off in April 2016, one of the key elements featured was the introduction of the ESPD (European Single Procurement Document).

What is an ESPD?

An ESPD is an online electronic form that any supplier can complete, download and submit as part of their bid for a growing number of public procurement agencies, both nationally and internationally.

Access to the form can be found HERE.

As part of the reform, this process simplifies cross-border procurement, cuts down on paperwork, and helps provide access to new opportunities for businesses of all sizes.

The procurement policy remains the same as a pre-qualification questionnaire stage (or PQQ for short), where buyers can assess your response to specific criteria to determine the capability of your delivery in order to be invited to tender (ITT).

CLICK HERE for further information about the PQQ process.

What does an ESPD include?

This contains all of the similar exclusion criteria and selection criteria that enables your company to subsequently be invited to tender (ITT), which remains from the prior PQQ document. It’s the YES/NO questions that ensure you are an upstanding member of the national business community and are not faulting in certain areas, such as criminal convictions, tax evasion, fraud etc.

The biggest new element is the idea of self-certification. During our team’s procurement careers, what happened in the past was that on a typical PQQ, you had to attach endless amounts of financial accounts and policies. Now, as per the reform and introduction of an ESPD, you must self-certify that you maintain all this documentation and provide the evidence later at any time. So, make sure you have your policies and financial documents in place, ready to attach when prompted by the buyer.

How does it affect you?

This has been put in place to ensure that you don’t need to keep completing the same old questionnaire time and time again. Many buyers now will ask you if you have completed this generic document and you can attach this in order to save time (see example below).

One thing to remember is the Technical & Professional Capability section as part of the PQQ (or Selection Questionnaire-SQ). You must adapt this for every contract, because no two contracts are the same and you’ll need to show off your technical capability and experience in different ways, for different previous contract examples. Make sure this is adjusted based on the new contract requirements at hand.

Other than this, this affects you minimally. If you have tendered before you’ll be used to the questions asked here – it’s purpose is merely to make it simpler and save you time.

We are here to help you SUCCEED

Get in touch with our Tender Consultants for more information

WHAT IS A DYNAMIC PURCHASING SYSTEM? The DPS in Tendering!

Here we go again – another term which is not well known in all industry sectors across the UK – a Dynamic Purchasing System.

As always, we are here to help you understand all these ‘niggly’ bits to tendering, to ensure you are prepared to undergo some serious business development planning across your sector and beyond!

You can see the different bidding terminologies applicable in our ‘Tendering doesn’t have to be complicated’ blog.

In a nutshell – a Dynamic Purchasing System (or DPS for short) is basically a supply chain list where tenders or other bidding opportunities are published to specific members that have been successful in maintaining a position on that list.

As quoted in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, “[a] DPS should be set up for identified types of requirement, which may be divided into categories of products, works or services.”

This could be any organisation or group of organisations, who wants to outsource work in either one or more service areas [or LOTs] and rather than having 50-100 applications come through for the [potentially many] tenders they publish, they start by narrowing down a set-list of applicants onto their own DPS.

Differences between Dynamic Purchasing System & General Tender processes

The main differences from the typical tender process are that a DPS is to:

be run as a completely electronic process (no paper or posting required here)
allow new suppliers to join at any time (meaning that if you have been unsuccessful at securing a place – you can always try again in the future)
and show longevity in its run (we’ve come across DPS’s which are open for 10 or more years)

All that suppliers would need to do, is register their company onto this DPS online, click which service area they are interested in delivering and undergo a Stage 1 submission in order to secure a place. Once secured, Stage 2 is the actual tendering of the works in question.

For example – A Housing Association could create a DPS for their outsourced Creative activity, which includes a range of service areas/LOTs – i.e. Branding, Printing, Website Hosting etc. They would publish this DPS opportunity to all and then undergo multiple stages to narrow down the process of awarding the work via the ‘most economically advantageous tender’ (MEAT).

Stage 1

In the average UK tender process, a lot of suppliers may be asked to complete a Pre-qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) to help the buyer narrow down their list of Invitations to Tender (ITT). This is now being taking over by a ‘Selection Questionnaire’ on many portals. It’s similar with a DPS – the supplier has to get onto the DPS in order to be Invited to Tender for works and they do this by completing a Stage 1 application process that heavily resembles a PQQ, with maybe a few additional questions thrown in.

Like a typical PQQ-to-ITT process, securing access to the DPS reflects a ‘weed-out’ procedure, with the buyer ensuring they progress all applicants who demonstrate greater strengths in their financial, technical and professional capabilities.

Stage 2

Once you are successful and Stage 1 is complete – it is complete. You do not have to re-do any capability and competency-based questions. Every time a tender is published in relation to your service area, as part of this Dynamic Purchasing System, you are automatically invited to tender and answer all questions specific to that service!

Once on the DPS then a range of tenders will then ensue (as and when required), allowing the buyer to streamline a more technically-focused evaluation on the responses collated.

Where we stand in all of this!

Our Tender Connect platform, which will be launching within the next 12-months, has many traits of a Dynamic Purchasing System, in that a buyer, let’s, for example, say a Design agency on our Creative Tenders portal, seeks a professional company who can support their financial/accountancy needs. All that the Design agency would do is:

Log on to Tender Connect
View a list of our Professional Tenders subscribers, which encapsulates a large list of Accountancy firms
Publish their ‘private opportunity brief’ to a filtered list of suppliers
Receive responses, evaluate and award

The reason we filter this list is to avoid publishing opportunities that bare minimal relevance to our suppliers. And to streamline the process for our buyers, helping them publish specific competitive opportunities to the most competent suppliers.

So, if you ever come across a DPS that contains services specific to your offering – get on board.

Our Tender Consultants can help you succeed!