Each year, the public sector procures around £220 billion on works, goods and services. This ranges from the NHS, to the police services, education authorities as well as local and central government. In today’s economic climate, the fact that the public sector normally pay promptly makes them excellent clients, offering businesses vital stability. All public bodies should be viewed as a key potential customer, with:
Local government spending £27 billion on bought-in goods and services
Regional spend in the NHS estimated to be around £12 billion
Civil government spending £15 billion
Up to 600 new contract opportunities a week
The good news is it's free to look through tender opportunities, you simply need to decide which kind you wish to go for. As mentioned in our tendering advice guide, there is no point punching above your weight. If you cannot fulfil all criteria, it will make you less likely to be chosen. Instead, look for opportunities working as a sub-contractor on larger projects.
High Value Public Tenders
EU regulations stipulate that higher value (above £100,000) tenders have to be
published across Europe and the European Economic area. However,
contracts which are advertised in the Official Journal of the
European Union (OJEU) as high-value can still be viable
options for a lot of SMEs.
The EU thresholds dictate the total potential value of the
contract, for the lifetime of that contract. Therefore the
annual total value could well be under £100,000 and therefore
applicable to SMEs.
For instance, a contract for a central government body with a
value of £120,000 for three years is only £40,000 per annum: a
sum well within the range of most SMEs.
Despite various websites advertising a tender finding service, it is actually free to search for tenders on the official Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) website. The TED website is the online supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). The website is updated five times a week.
Although you may find some contracts are too big, it's worth following up 'contract award announcements' where the work is related to what your organisation does. The main contractor may be involved in sub-contractor procurement, such as a construction project.
Using the TED website
You can use the search function to look for current tenders. The 'Full text' field allows you to put in key words, such as as typical services you provide, or your locality. The other input boxes on the search form have a + symbol which offers a list of options to select from.
To simply look at all available tenders, choose 'Business Opportunities' from the left-side menu. You can then drill down to your country and view all tenders as a list. The contracts are numbered chronologically, so you can check back each week to see new contracts.
For more information, a free book is available aimed at SMEs looking to take advantage of the service.
Low Value Public Sector Tenders
In the past, it's been difficult to find lower-value contracts.
Being advertised in various places, it's been time consuming to
find opportunities, especially for SMEs. With the launch of a
centralised lower-value contract website called Supply2Gov
however, the problem has now been solved.
The Supply2Gov website shows all public contracts under £100,000 which fall below the advertising thresholds of the OJEU. When combining all contract sizes, Supply2Gov claim there are 3000 new opportunities every month.
Using the Supply2Gov website
You can register on the website to be alerted of tender opportunities that match the criteria you have selected in the area you cover. If you want to get notifications outside of your local area or detailed alerts, you need to pay to upgrade.
These smaller contracts, which aren't listed on the TED website, are completely free to review. However, to see higher value contracts, registration must be upgraded where a fee is then charged.
To adhere to EU regulations public bodies are required to advertise opportunities valued above the EU thresholds (typically above £100,000) in the OJEU – and it is these contracts which are classified as ‘high-value’.
The registration and search pages Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) codes to signify which type of product or service you provide. There is a key word search available on the website so you can match up what you do with a relevant CPV code.
Thanks!
The content for this article was supplied by tender consultants Tony Zemaitis Associates, who provide expert help in assessing or responding to tenders and pre-qualification questionnaires (PQQs).
For more information visit www.zemaitis-uk.com.
