Tendering For Care

The Charity Commission recently published a statement in support of its annual economic survey results. In this the Chairman – Dame Suzie Leather predicted that a number of large charities will face a funding precipice by March 2011.The link to the press release is below.

This comment replicates the observation of TfC resuting from our work with large charities. It appears to be the larger charities, those with an annual turnover of more than £65 million, which are having the greatest difficulty in tendering successfully for public sector contracts. Success rates of below 40% are not uncommon.Those which depend on public contracts and are operating at this level, especially if this relates to the re-tendering of existing contracts are already on a slippery slope to financial failure.The main reasons for this state of affairs is that the larg charities tend to continue to depend upon their name and "brand" in tendering. They appear not to understand that tendering is not about size and how they have delivered services in the past Above all else tendering is about three things:

the governance and management of the company or organisation;

the quality of management;

the tender specification

Large charities and companies find it hard to understand that the tender appraisal centres largely on the capacity and capability of the Board to ensure contractual compliance. To a large extent it is the Board and senior management which is being scored. Often this is far too distant from actual contract delivery, with the direct link between the individual contract, senior management and the Baord being unclear. Smaller organisations can therefore win by making these links very clear and distinct. Successful tendering by companies and organisations of all sizes requires a focus on these areas both in the PQQ and the method statement.