Contract opportunities

Most of Royal Mail's requirements for Supplies, Services and Works are advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union, in accordance with the provisions of the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2006. Information on opportunities to contract with Royal Mail can therefore be found in the form of a Contract Notice published on the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) website by the European Union.

http://ted.europa.eu/

Having located a contract opportunity on TED, interested organisations should respond to the Contract Notice within the time specified, taking care to provide all of the information requested. It is important to read the notice carefully and provide all information that it specifies, in particular the details of Financial Capacity and Technical Capability. This will enable Royal Mail to determine whether your organisation qualifies to receive an Invitation to Tender or an Invitation to Participate in Dialogue.

Frequently, the Contract Notice will refer to a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ). If used, the PQQ will be available on Royal Mail’s electronic sourcing web portal and will include detailed questions relating to Financial Capacity and Technical Capability. The Contract Notice will give details of how to access and register in order to complete the PQQ.

The Contract Notice may request you to download (please note, do not open the file directly; instead right-click and select “Save Target As” to download it to your local PC before opening it),

Complete and submit the  Applicant Details Spreadsheet .

Submission details, including the email address to send the Applicant Details Spreadsheet to, will be detailed in the Contract Notice.  The spreadsheet format should not be amended in any way.

Mandatory information required to be added to the spreadsheet is:

• Organisation name;
• Contact Telephone Number for your organisation;
• First name of the person who will complete the PQQ;
• Surname of the person who will complete the PQQ;
• Contact number for the person who will complete the PQQ;
• Email address of the person who will be completing the PQQ.

Please also complete as much of the non-mandatory information as possible.

Royal Mail will evaluate responses to the Contract Notice (and PQQ if one is used) and determine which organisations qualify to proceed to the next stage of the Procurement process. Any organisations that do not qualify are informed at this point.

Qualified organisations are then issued with an Invitation to Tender (or an Invitation to Participate in Dialogue if the contract is particularly complex and the Competitive Dialogue procedure is being used).

The ITT will provide details of the specification, the terms and conditions to be used for the contract and the award criteria that will govern contract award. The ITT may be issued via Royal Mail’s electronic sourcing web portal. Completed tenders should be returned to Royal Mail by the date specified in the ITT.

If used, an Invitation to Participate in Dialogue will include a descriptive document setting out the general requirement, in addition to contract terms and conditions and information on how the dialogue will be conducted. At the end of the dialogue process, a final ITT will be issued.

Royal Mail will evaluate tenders against the published award criteria, carry out any necessary clarification of bids, and decide on the contract award. The award decision will be communicated to all participating organisations, following which there is a legal obligation to wait for ten days, allowing the opportunity for bidders to obtain feedback, before the contract is awarded. Publication of a Contract Award Notice in the Official Journal of the EU concludes the process.