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by Chloe Parker, Category Manager – Construction & Estates, NHS Shared Business Services. |
Do you have an upcoming public sector procurement project, or just want to refresh your knowledge of compliant framework agreement use?
At NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS), we help the NHS and wider public sector gain value for money, whilst enhancing quality throughout their procurements. The Healthcare Planning, Construction Consultancy and Ancillary Services (HPCCAS) team hosted a webinar for our customers: “Clear, Compliant & Competitive – Setting your Procurement up for Success” aimed at supporting our customers in setting up an effective procurement. This blog summarises that webinar, but you can watch the whole thing at – Clear, Compliant & Competitive: Setting Your Procurement up for Success on Vimeo
We felt it was important to provide confidence for our customers, both when procuring under the HPCCAS Framework Agreement, and indeed any of our portfolio of framework agreements. We’re always here to support our customers and suppliers. We provide flexibility when calling off, ensuring a compliant process for our customers, as well as providing peace of mind – we, as a team complete regular finance checks and certification due diligence on all our framework suppliers.
Capability Assessments (CAs):
Capability Assessments (CAs) otherwise known as an ‘Expressions of Interest’ is a key part in the call-off process, providing our customers with a shortlist of suppliers to take through to further competition stage. We provide reminders for customers when going through the CA process, to ensure clarity for both the customer and the supplier.
Award routes
There are two award routes via framework agreements: direct award and further competition (often known as mini-competition).
Direct award is popular because it’s often perceived to be quicker and easier, but it’s not always appropriate or compliant. If you’d like to use the direct award route, you should ensure that there are sufficient grounds for doing so – the category managers can help here. If there are, all you need to do is ensure your chosen supplier is on the lot you wish to use; make initial contact with the supplier, and notify them of the requirements, timeframe and scope of work, agree on a date and a form of contract, and finally complete your SLA (more on those further down).
If you’d prefer to gauge the market by running a further competition, complete a capability assessment 1 (CA1) to assess interest. If numbers remain high, which they often do on a framework agreement like HPCCAS, we recommend running a second capability assessment (CA2). Develop your tender documents and invite suppliers to bid; evaluate the bidders as per the criteria in the tender docs, finally, upon award, complete the SLA.
Evaluation and moderation
A crucial part of the procurement process is evaluating and moderating supplier bid responses. Our top tips include ensuring criteria is clearly laid out in documents, consideration when planning procurement timelines, providing a good understanding for evaluators, the importance of strong moderation and providing bidders with essential feedback, following competitions.
Completing your Service Level Agreement
The Service Level Agreement, often referred to as an SLA or an order form, ensures compliance when awarding call-off contracts as well as supporting NHS SBS in gaining critical framework agreement data, which feeds into successful contract management and a successful framework agreement renewal.
Missed the webinar?
If you missed out on the webinar, you can re-watch it below or download the slides.
