Commissioning and Tendering

What is Commissioning?

The word ‘Commissioning’ is frequently used but often without the knowledge or full understanding the term. To better understand Commissioning, the following definition provided by The Audit Commission is useful. This reads:

"The process of specifying, securing and monitoring of services to meet people’s needs at a strategic level. This applies to all services, whether they are provided by the local authority, NHS, other public agencies or by the private and Third Sector.”

Audit Commission; Making Ends Meet, Oct 2003.

It is possible to find alternative descriptions but generally speaking they are usually variations of the above theme.

Let’s take a closer look at what this means in practice.

The Strategic Commissioning Cycle; Improving the Strategic Commissioning of Public Services: a joint LGA/CBI vision, June 2008.

Commissioning of public services is all about local authorities working with purchasers, providers and most of all communities, to identify and understand the end users’ needs so that services can be designed to meet those needs. This is done by working within a structured and planned process that is continuous and ongoing to ensure that services are improved and developed against past experience and current community need. Resources will always be an issue but now the Commissioning process provides an opportunity for community and voluntary organisations to participate. The Commissioners of services will also decide on how best to provide these services and the process for making this happen. This is a very brief summary of what is a complex process that will take time to establish and deliver.

What is Tendering?

Tendering is part of the process of procurement, where an organisation wishes to buy goods or services to a specific standard and to secure best value for its investment.

To do this, an organisation (known as the Purchaser) would identify the need, prepare a specification of what is required to meet that need and then ask for Expressions of Interest from known or potential Providers. Those who express an interest might be asked to submit a PQQ (Pre Qualification Questionnaire) and from this the Purchaser creates what is called the Tender List. This is a list of those chosen to tender, based upon their perceived ability to meet the need. Those chosen to tender will receive a detailed Specification and will be asked to make a formal bid, explaining how the goods or services will be provided and at what price. The submission of the completed tender bid is usually done under strict confidentiality rules. Bids are evaluated and either the best bid is chosen or selected bidders are invited to a tender meeting where they can be questioned about any aspect of their bid. From this a preferred tender is chosen and subject to certain checks being satisfied a contract is awarded. This is the tender process in very simple terms.

Additional Tendering Information

If you have completed the "Are You Ready to Tender” section of the webpage successfully, you may now want to know more about the various tendering processes and the following sections will be of assistance. These are:

1. Getting your organisation ready to participate in the Tender process
2. Getting your Tender application ready for submission
3. Getting ready to win Tenders by good presentation