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My Community Rights
Community Right to Challenge
How to write a
good PQQ/tender
This guide has been written by Chris Beety
and Chris Hart of Ignition Enterprises Ltd.
The early stages
Starting out on the process of bidding for
public sector services may seem daunting
but it is the most important stage and can
be made more straightforward by following
a few simple guidelines.
including the speciﬁcation, evaluation
criteria and scoring. You need the
commissioners to see you as allies, helping
them to identify the best means of service
provision.
Influence the commissioning
process
It will be too late to inﬂuence the service
speciﬁcation once the procurement
process starts.
The Community Right to Challenge in a
way is all about inﬂuencing the
commissioning process, in a very direct
way. But even if you are not planning to use
the Right to Challenge, ﬁnding other ways
to build relationships with commissioners
and inﬂuence the commissioning process is
really important. Commissioners and their
procurement colleagues will ultimately
decide the scope and shape of any major
services which are to be procured.
The procurement process for advertised
contracts above the E.U. threshold will
include an advert generally detailing:
You are in a good position to inform
commissioners of the needs of local people
and inﬂuence the authority’s response in a
way which will improve eﬀectiveness.
For smaller opportunities below the
threshold at which public sector contracts
must be let through European procedures,
you should directly target budget holders. A
large amount of work is distributed by
individual buyers in departments rather than
through central procurement teams. This
includes Operational Managers and Area
based units. Make them aware of your
organisation, its services/products and how
you can help them.
The Government believes all commissioners
should access specialist knowledge
(including organisations which are counted
as ‘relevant bodies’ in the Right to
Challenge legislation such as third sector
organisations, and Town and Parish
Councils), consult potential providers in
advance of commissioning services and
consider investing in the capacity of the
provider base.
Find out who in the authority currently
speciﬁes the service you are interested in
and make contact with them as soon as
you have identiﬁed a relevant service.
Try to get involved in the initial design of
the service and the commissioning process
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type of body and its role
description of type of contract
invitation for expression of interest
details of the procedure
estimated value
closing date
duration
Be prepared
Don’t wait until the procurement process
starts. Start now by building a bid portfolio.
Collect together all the documents on your
organisation that you will need to make a
bid and keep it up-to-date.
This should include:
• Certiﬁcate of Incorporation/Charity
registration
• Organisation chart and description of key
staﬀ and qualiﬁcations
• Three years’ audited accounts
• Employer’s Liability insurance
• Public Liability insurance
• Accreditations and certiﬁcates
• Policies and procedures
• Technical capability supporting
documents (diﬀerent versions tailored to
likely opportunities)
• Unit cost prices for your various services
• Local demographics
• Others (e.g. Professional Indemnity
Insurance).
Decide whether to bid
When you ﬁrst see an opportunity you can
waste a lot of precious time and eﬀort if
you don’t make an informed decision at the
earliest opportunity on whether or not to
bid. You will need to decide quickly in order
to allow yourself time to put the bid together.
If you are facing a procurement process
following a successful expression of interest
(EOI) under the Community Right to
Challenge, then presumably you will
already feel committed to making a bid.
But things do change over time, and the
precise nature of a tender might still need
you to think again about whether you are
really in a position to bid.
Pointers as to what might inﬂuence your
decision include:
• Is the service part of our core business?
• Do we have particular strengths in this
area?
• Does it provide an opportunity to expand
existing services?
• Do we have the capacity to expand?
• Can we deliver the required outcomes
within the money available?
• What evidence do we have of delivering
similar outcomes for previous clients?
Getting through the PreQualification Questionnaire
stage
What buyers want to see and
why
Here is an example of the sort of ﬁnancial
criteria which the buyer will want to gauge
from your most recent audited accounts.
Buyers of your services will want to assure
themselves of your organisation’s ability to
deliver. They have to use deﬁned processes
based on EU and UK Legislation to do this
in a fair and transparent way.
They often use a two stage process to
choose a supplier. The ﬁrst stage is to use a
Pre-Qualiﬁcation Questionnaire (PQQ) to
sift out organisations which may present a
higher level of risk than others.
The risk may come from an organisation’s
ﬁnancial position or from inadequate
organisational processes.
Criteria
Measure
Proﬁtability
Annual proﬁt after tax
Loss = 0
Proﬁt = 5
Liquidity
Ratio of current assets
to current liabilities
<1=0
1.0 – 1.19 = 2
1.2 – 1.49 = 5
> 1.5 + 10
Solvency
Total assets - total
liabilities
TOTAL POINTS AVAILABLE
Marking guidance
Insolvent = FAIL
£0 – £5K = 2
£6K – £40K = 5
> £40K + 10
25
It is very important to supply all the
information requested in a PQQ by the
dates speciﬁed. If not, you will be rejected
at ﬁrst stage of evaluation and not be
invited to tender.
You should be able to collect in advance
most of the information you will be asked
for in a PQQ and keep it in your bid
portfolio but don’t forget to tailor it for each
bid. For example, you will probably be
asked to indicate the principal business
activity of your organisation. What they are
looking for is that the work they are
procuring at that time is core to your
activities.
To distinguish your PQQ from the rest you
need to display a clear understanding of the
buyer’s requirements. In particular you need
to remember that public sector bodies
place great importance on the commitment
of organisations to health and safety, quality,
equal opportunities and environmental issues.
You can demonstrate this by having written
policies in place and will need to evidence
this in your PQQ submission.
PQQ’s generally consist of a core
questionnaire with discretionary modules
focussed on the particular service being
procured.
The PQQ will require you to provide a
range of information including:
• Company information – contact details,
VAT number, company formation
number, date of incorporation, registered
address, etc.
• Financial information – recent turnover,
usually last three years’ audited accounts
if applicable, proﬁt & loss, up-to-date
management accounts
• Technical information – accreditations
(e.g. ISO, Investors in People)
partnerships, insurances, references
• Policies – Health & Safety, Environmental
Management, Recruitment, Training,
Business Continuity, Equal Opportunities
and Quality policies will want to be seen
with relevant ISO or IIP certiﬁcates
The purpose of the PQQ is to test suppliers’
suitability and reduce the ﬁeld to a
manageable number (generally 5 – 10
bidders). It is a high level evaluation with a
mixture of pass/fail and scored questions.
The buyer will be looking to judge bidders
on the basis of:
• Financial strength and turnover
compared to size of contract
• Is the organisation credit worthy?
• Dependency
• Will the organisation be overdependent on this contract or
contracting authority?
• Capacity
• Does the organisation have
suﬃcient resources to meet the
contract demands?
• Capability
• Does the organisation have the
necessary skills and experience to
carry out the contract?
Demonstrating your
capability
In answering the questions you should aim
to demonstrate that you have:
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delivered contract values of similar value
strong ﬁnancial reserves/cash ﬂow
suﬃcient capacity
access to a workforce of qualiﬁed and
assessed employees or potential
employees and/or sub-contractors and
associates
• up-to-date business policies
• a robust Quality Management System.
Where the organisation is part of a group
(e.g. a subsidiary trading company) or of a
collaborative bid they will probably require
the information for each of the
organisations.
The basic criteria will be met by more
suppliers than are required. Most score
similar marks so you need to score higher
marks by demonstrating added value. You
need to do more than tick the boxes.
Highlight how you will meet key
requirements and emphasise your unique
abilities to deliver.
The buyer may well require references.
They often want three recent references
relating to work relevant to the contract
you are bidding for and which you have
carried out satisfactorily for similar
organisations. Don’t leave this to chance.
Notify your referees in advance and outline
for them the type of work you are currently
bidding for and how the work you did for
them relates to this. Remind them of the
successes you achieved and if they
renewed or extended the contract with you
ask them to point that out.
When the buyers have scored the PQQ
responses they will produce a ranked short
list from the PQQ evaluation. Only a
manageable number (5-10) will receive an
Invitation to Tender containing the
following Procurement key documents:
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Speciﬁcation
Detailed instructions
Timetable/deadlines
Evaluation details
Make sure you are one of those invited to
tender by completing your PQQ fully and
getting it in on time.
Writing a high quality bid
Planning and preparation
There is a lot of work involved in writing a
high quality bid. Don’t underestimate this.
Before you receive the ITT decide who
should be in the bid writing team, who will
lead it and who will do what. If you are a
very small organisation this may all come
down to one person unless you hire in a
specialist to help you do this. This may be
worthwhile if you are competing against
large organisations that may well have a
dedicated bid writing team.
The starting point in writing a high quality
bid that stands out from the rest is the
buyer’s speciﬁcation and other contract
documents.
As soon as you get the Invitation to Tender
distribute it to all involved. Get them to read
it thoroughly and raise any questions for
clariﬁcation. In most cases you will only
have a relatively short window of time in
which to ask questions through the
procurement portal or directly with a
contact named in the documents.
Remember that if you ask a question it will
be made known to all the other bidders
together with the answer given unless the
question is one which you can demonstrate
should be ‘commercial in conﬁdence’.
Get a clear picture in your head of the
service the commissioner wants. If this
doesn’t match what you can oﬀer – don’t
bid for it – bin it! It’s too late at this stage to
try and inﬂuence the shape of the
speciﬁcation.
In particular you need to understand the
detail of the scoring and weighting
mechanism which will be used by the
buyers to assess all the bids. You will need
to match your answers to the scored
criteria which will be set out in the
Invitation to Tender (ITT) documents.
Read the speciﬁcation again fully and
carefully and identify all the aspects of it
where you readily meet the requirements
and those where you might need to gear up.
You will have a limited time (often ﬁve
weeks) from the issuing of the ITT to the
return date to complete your bid. Plan
carefully to ensure you do not miss the
deadline as you will not be given a second
chance. Draw a timeline back from the
deadline allowing time to:
• build and brief the bid writing team
reﬂecting the likely make up of the
buyer’s evaluation team
• plan the bid writing process
• treat the bid as a stand-alone project
• read the speciﬁcation and criteria
• write the bid
• check the draft against the speciﬁcation
• use a critical friend to review your bid
• redraft your bid
• ﬁnalise the bid – in particular make sure
the budget adds up
• check and proofread the ﬁnal version
• gain approval from your management
team/board
• get your submission signed by your chair
or other authorised signatory
• deliver your bid or upload it electronically
to meet the buyer’s deadline
Ensure key people clear time in their diaries
and make sure they will be available when
needed.
Elements of a strong bid
A strong bid is one which:
• reﬂects what commissioners have said
they want in the speciﬁcation
• is structured to match the questions and
the scoring
• covers all the questions fully
• is succinct
• is complete
• clearly sets out what you will deliver
against the speciﬁcation
• identiﬁes added value
• has self-contained answers not crossreferenced to other answers
The strongest bid is the one which scores
the most points so pay great attention to
the client’s evaluation method and make
sure you:
• structure your bid to follow their
Invitation to Tender format
• concisely address all their requirements
• pitch your bid at the right level for the
readers
• focus on their key criteria
• demonstrate your relevant experience
and capability
• support your statements by relevant
evidence
• prove you are technically sound
Use your answers to demonstrate you
understand and can assist the buyer’s
objectives and policy drivers.
Generic drivers may include the recession,
funding constraints and one-planet living.
Others particular to the buying agency’s
corporate plans might be reduced unit
costs, innovative service solutions, local
impact and whole life cost. Those which are
speciﬁc to the subject matter of contract
could include the personalisation agenda in
social care, carbon neutral service delivery
or local sustainable food.
Use their evaluation criteria in your tender
and explain clearly how your solution will
address them.
Focus on the outcomes you will deliver and
the processes you will use to ensure they
are delivered eﬀectively on time every time.
You will need to demonstrate you have in
place strong mechanisms for assuring
quality of your service.
Look for opportunities to emphasise the
value you can add and particularly the
unique selling points of your oﬀer.
Don’t just assert your capability, use
relevant evidence to demonstrate your
ability to deliver. It is not suﬃcient to make
statements such as ‘we have lots of relevant
experience’. Demonstrate, prove and
evidence the fact using relevant examples.
For example ‘Over the past ﬁve years we
have delivered two similar projects in the
area. These have been contracts with a
value of £100k, each of which has been
subsequently renewed. On average we
have delivered 500 outcomes per year
identical to those required in the current
tender. We have delivered them on time
and to the client’s full satisfaction’.
Commissioners will be looking for a
seamless transition from the current
service. In particular you will have to show
you understand and will deal eﬀectively
with the transfer of any staﬀ and assets if
there is a current provider. Identify and spell
out the ability you have to hit the ground
running, not least if you are the current
service provider and have already
developed robust delivery systems and
strong relationships with key stakeholders.
Demonstrating capability
The tender documents will set out the
requirements to be met including:
• deﬁnitions of service – what has to be
delivered and to what standards
• measurable deliverables or
outputs/outcomes
• performance indicators for the contract
including milestones
You will have to prove that you are capable
of delivering all of these. To do this it might
be useful to pick some of your previous or
current customers and describe:
• how long you have been working with
the customer
• what were the key project objectives and
deliverables?
• what was your project scope?
• what was the value of the project and
project duration?
• what was your methodology and/or
approach to ensure project deliverables
and objectives were accomplished within
time and budget?
Demonstrating quality
You need to understand what quality means
to the buyer. The correct interpretation of
their needs is critical. This will enable you to
develop and maintain a reliable system to
ensure that you consistently meet their
expectations.
A Quality Assurance System is a way of
monitoring and collecting evidence that
demonstrates that the organisation is
continuously improving what it does and
how it does it.
There are various quality systems. Generally
speaking, you will receive higher scores if
you have an independent, internationally
recognised system such as ISO, which is
externally evaluated. If not, you will have to
demonstrate that you have a documented
and comprehensive quality management
system in place which will assure the buyer of:
• accuracy and reliability of service
• promptness and timeliness of service
• ability to consistently supply a consistent
quality over the period of the contract
• professional standards you have adopted
and the quality and training of staﬀ
• how you identify and respond to what
customers want and expect
• professionalism/helpfulness of your staﬀ
• eﬀective complaints procedures and
rectiﬁcation of mistakes
Implementing such a system takes time and
has a cost which you will need to consider.
Demonstrating technical
capacity
The buyer will be looking to see that you
have experience relevant to the speciﬁc
contract. Fully detail similar work done and
highlight where it matches the current
speciﬁcation and what type, size and value
of contracts you have been awarded. They
are looking for evidence of successfully
completed contracts so say who you did
the work for giving names and contacts and
in particular highlight work you have done
for other public sector bodies and
emphasise any which have been renewed
or extended.
They will also want to see evidence of your
Contract Management processes and
capability not only for service delivery but
for Relationship Management, Risk
Management, Contract Administration and
Change Management.
One of the main objectives of
commissioners and buyers is to minimise
the risk of failure to deliver services.
They will want to be sure that you have a
plan in place that details how you will
deliver the contract even if major problems
occur elsewhere in your organisation – e.g.
what are your plans if your oﬃces burn
down, your vehicles are stolen, your IT
system fails, staﬀ are oﬀ work etc.
They are looking for something more than
‘trust us we will do our best to deliver’. You
should identify all the relevant risks, put in
place measures to minimise the eﬀects of
those risks and encompass them in a
Business Continuity Policy.
Aligning your tender to the
evaluation process
The evaluation process is a formal process
generally carried out by more than one
person in a panel format.
The process should be objective, consistent
and unbiased.
Most tenders are judged on a combination
of price and quality. The purpose is to ﬁnd
the Most Economically Advantageous
Tender (MEAT). MEAT doesn’t mean
cheapest but price is always going to be a
consideration in a competitive tendering
situation.
The balance between price and quality can
vary considerably. It will depend principally
on the nature of the service or product
being procured. For example, a buyer
purchasing paper will probably place a
higher weighting on the price because the
product quality is standardised and presents
little risk of a major problem occurring as a
result of a quality failure.
On the other hand a service providing
health care to vulnerable adults will
generally be more heavily weighted
towards the quality of the service provision.
The Criteria and Weightings should be predetermined, published, transparent, clear
and relevant to the contract.
Generally speaking the scoring and
weighting of services rather than products
will be in the range of 20 – 50% price and
50 – 80% quality.
The assessment of quality in tenders is
multi-faceted. It can include:
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timeliness
service levels
staﬃng levels
staﬀ training and skills
technical capacity and experience
proportion to be sub-contracted
managerial structure
business continuity arrangements
environmental characteristics and
management systems
• quality management system
• social/economic beneﬁts
• references
Make sure you read the evaluation criteria
carefully and match your answers to the
evaluation criteria and scoring.
Tailoring each answer is key!
• Tailor case studies or references
• Make them applicable and relevant to
the contract in question
• Tailor your organisation’s history and
description
• Make it relevant to the contract
requirements
• DON’T LIE!!!!!! Your tender will bind you
to deliver what you say.
• Make your statements interesting and
unique
• Don’t just copy and paste
• Don’t use brochures
Writing your bid
It is critically important to understand how
the scoring systems and weighting will
work. When you get the ITT check the
contract carefully and ask questions
straightaway.
When you start writing your tender set out
your responses in their order and ensure
your responses are clearly numbered/
indexed. In particular match your answers
to the points available for each question.
Bids should ﬂow and be easy to read. Don’t
use jargon, acronyms etc. Don’t pad out the
bid and don’t include anything not asked
for. Personalise/localise the bid. Use ‘we’
rather than ‘the organisation’.
You will often be required to limit the size
of your response to each question. Do not
be tempted to exceed the limit set. Instead,
edit your responses carefully to reduce the
number of words whilst retaining the key
points and the sense of your oﬀer.
The following tips are useful.
You should identify for each question what
the commissioner objectives are. What is
important to them and what is not? The
points available for particular questions
reﬂect what they see as important so
identify those which carry the highest
score/weightings. Answer these questions
ﬁrst. They may be the hardest or require
most work. Avoid the temptation to go for
the low scoring ones ﬁrst, even if they seem
easier to answer. Don’t assume they will
know your organisation, or even if they do
that they will take that into account. They
can only score you on what you put in your
tender.
An existing provider is often in the best
position to be able to demonstrate they
meet the required criteria but can be
complacent and easily overlook the need to
evidence it because they assume the buyer
will know.
Whether you are the current provider or not
you need to demonstrate why there is less
risk from using your organisation and that
you will deliver continuing improvement.
You particularly need to show clearly where
you shine in terms of:
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being more innovative
being more responsive
being more ﬂexible
oﬀering better quality of service
oﬀering a specialism or expertise
• Focus on key messages – people will
only remember a few key points so make
them count
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short
and punchy
• Use bullet points and headings to break
up text
• Ensure that typeface is consistent and
matches any requirement as to size etc
speciﬁed
• Pay attention to layout
• Be careful when cutting and pasting
copy to make sure it is consistent
• Ensure that the document includes the
cover sheet with project title, date, and
name of the organisation submitting the
tender
Plain English and layout
techniques
It is important to use plain English and
remember that visual impact is important.
These techniques will help you to write a
sharper, interesting and readable bid.
• Write your bid as if you were speaking to
the buyer. Use ‘you’ and ‘we’ for their
organisation and yours. Use words
appropriate to the audience – words
they will understand.
• Change nouns to verbs
• ‘By understanding clients, we provide
services they need’
is sharper than
• ‘Our understanding of clients helps
us to provide services they need’
• Use the Active Voice where possible
• Active – we delivered the project
is more readable than
• Passive – the project was delivered
by us
• Forecast coming paragraphs with a
summary of what’s to come and what
you’ve said. This is often called the 10
o’clock news technique. You will have
heard newscasters tell you what they are
going to cover, what the full story is and
ﬁnally recap in brief.
• Improve readability by using bulleted lists
as above.
• Use a clear type font. Sometimes the
buyer will prescribe the font and size you
must use. If not, use a plain font without
serifs (the pointy bits) such as Arial. A font
size of 10 – 14 points is generally
recommended.
• Avoid or use sparingly, italics, bold or
capital letters or underlining in text.
• Use black text.
• Use headings and sub-headings to
headline coming paragraphs and break
up text.
• Be consistent with whichever techniques
you choose particularly headings and any
bulleting symbols used.
• Line length across the page is important.
A full page width should average around
10 words.
• You should choose a consistent
alignment for both edges of the page.
The two main options for bid writing are
‘justiﬁed’ where each line length is the
same as in this document or ‘ragged
right’ where the lines are only lined up on
the left hand margin.
• Margins on both edges should be about
1” wide unless your response has to ﬁt in
a box given by the buyer.
• Leave as much white space as possible
to make your bid easy to read.
• Number each page in your bid and
consider numbering paragraphs or
headings and sub-headings.
• Don’t use diagrams, graphs, charts or
photos unless called for by the buyer.
The presentation and layout of the
document should reflect the
professionalism of your organisation.
Finalising and submitting
your bid
Develop a tender checklist
It is best to work to a checklist when
tendering to ensure that you cover all
aspects required. Tips to keep in mind
during the preparation of the tender
document include:
• regularly review and update a check list
throughout the tender period
• use the checklist against your ﬁnal draft
to ensure it is complete and fully compliant
with everything that was asked for
• check the buyer’s website regularly for
answers to questions that may assist you
in preparing your tender
• ensure someone with the authority to
bind your organisation has time to review
and authorise the tender. If you need
your senior management or board to
approve the budgeted price and tender
documents prior to submitting, allow
time for this to happen and for any
subsequent amendments to be made to
the submission
• review the contract if you are unfamiliar
with it
• complete signatures, titles and dates. Most
tenders need to be signed and dated by
the responsible oﬃcer. Ensure that a
diary check has been done so that this
can be accommodated when the tender
is ﬁnalised. Remember, most responsible
oﬃcers prefer some time for reading
before signing. You may need to allow
extra time if your responsible oﬃcer is a
Board member who is not on site.
Adopt a quality control
process
Ensure that the tender is subjected to
quality control prior to its submission. Proof
read your bid in hard copy. It is easy to miss
errors on screen and don’t rely on a
spellchecker picking up everything – it
won’t. A ﬁnal check of the proposal should
pick up and correct all errors and omissions
and ensure that the tender documents
conform to the Invitation to Tender
requirements.
Have a critical friend review the document
against the speciﬁcation and consider their
feedback.
Finally, read everything again and ask
yourself:
• Is your document attractive and
readable?
• Does your oﬀer present a logical
argument where everything hangs
together?
• Are appendices clearly labelled with the
name of your organisation indexed to the
relevant question?
Remember to check again:
• day, date and time of submission
• method of submission
• unmarked labels, envelopes and delivery
address if not electronic
• completeness
• signatures, titles and dates
When you’ve completed your tender make
sure that an objective review takes place to
determine whether the requirements and
evaluation criteria have been addressed.
The most common reasons for bids being
rejected are failure to sign documents
correctly and late arrival.
Use feedback positively and view it as an
opportunity to improve your performance
in the future.
Remember these ﬁve points for successful
bidding:
1. Full compliance with the client’s
instructions;
2. Strict attention to each detail of the
speciﬁcation;
3. Data focussed sharply on relevant areas
of expertise and experience;
4. Information presented in a way that is
directly accessible;
5. The expression of real interest and
enthusiasm.
Contract award
After tenders for a contract above the
European threshold have been evaluated
bidders will be informed of who the
authority intends to award the contract to.
There will then be a 10 day standstill period
before the contract is awarded often
referred to as the Alcatel period after a
landmark court case. All bidders should be
told their scores and those of the winning
bidder. If not, ask immediately for this
information as you have only 10 days to
object to the award if you feel you have
grounds.
Whether you have won or lost always ask
for a debrieﬁng and detailed feedback on
your bid, particularly the detailed scoring.
This will enable you to improve for future
opportunities.
TOP TEN TIPS FOR
SUCCESSFUL BIDS
• Read the speciﬁcation – many bids fail
simply because bidders do not read the
speciﬁcation carefully enough
• Answer their questions – again read each
question carefully. Don’t interpret it to
what you think it should be
• Ask about anything that is not clear –
make sure you know the evaluation
criteria and scoring and match your
answers to the points available
• Don’t use jargon – use plain English
• Provide evidence – demonstrate and
provide proof of your experience and
suitability
• Don’t include any documents unless
asked – e.g. brochures, annual reports
etc
• Check your pricing carefully – make sure
it adds up
• Use a ‘critical friend’ to read your bid and
check it against the speciﬁcation and
bidding instructions
• Sign and date it as speciﬁed – if you
don’t it may well go in the bin
• Get your bid in on time – don’t leave it
until the last day. Even if it is an
electronic submission remember that it
will take time to upload