Tendering For Care

Following the General Election in May of this year, it has become very clear that public purchasing will contract significantly over the coming months. For example the total national spending on social care in 2009 was £18 billion, the plan is to reduce this by at least £4 billion to no more than £14 billion over the coming year (Ref. OGC). If tendering was competitive in 2009, it is significantly more so now with the standards required of a successful tender being raised considerably from July 2010. In order to tender successfully from now onwards, companies, charities and other organisations will need to provide evidence of compliance with an increasing range of standards and demonstrate clearly in the Method Statement that they have the capacity and capability to deliver the contract. 

We are already seeing an increased introduction of "Gateway questions". These are questions which are pass/fail in nature - essentially if the tenderer is unable to answer 'yes' to all of the gateway questions then the tender is excluded at that point.During June/July 2010 there have been a growing number of examples of tender documents stating "if you cannot answer 'yes' to the following questions do not proceed and do not submit a tender". This Free issue of RoundUP sets out some aspects of  the new requirements, requirements which are increasing week by week. RoundUP includes a list of typical Gateway questions.

For help with any aspect health, social care and voluntary sector tendering, please contact us by email on info@tenderingforcare.com

TfC is the only organisation which can offer five years experience of tendering successfully in these specialist areas.