The Council has well-established procedures for tendering for
work or buying products and does not usually respond to unsolicited
enquiries or applications.
The procurement methods used by the Council vary depending upon
the type of product/service and its overall value. For
detailed information on how you can sell the products or
service your organisation trades in, please select the
appropriate link(s) below:
Goods
The Council has a Strategic Procurement Unit responsible
for arranging, negotiating and monitoring core corporate contracts
and buying products on behalf of the whole Council, including
schools.
Although the Council does undertake some spot purchasing for low
value items, the bulk of its general supplies are purchased through
pre-tendered corporate contracts, set up in the form of framework
agreements.
The EC definition of a framework agreement is "an agreement
between one of the contracting entities (i.e. a local authority)
and one or more suppliers, contractors or service providers, the
purpose of which is to establish the terms, in particular with
regard to the prices and, where appropriate, the quantity
envisaged, governing the contracts to be awarded during a given
period".
These are negotiated by the Council or, more commonly, as part
of a widerPublic Service Consortia, e.g. the Office for Government
Commerce (OGC), Central Buying Consortium (CBC), London Contracts
and Supplies Group (LCSG). The Council does occasionally use a
pre-tendered catalogue facility, available through Kent County
Council.
These contracts are no more than a 4-year term and are
advertised via public advertisement in OJEU and relevant trade
journals. This method offers the Council choice, high quality
standards and good value for money.
Services
Many of the Council's main services are regularly exposed to
competition. For example:
- Refuse
collection
- Grounds
maintenance
- Building
cleaning
- Catering for
schools and Social Services
- Leisure
services
These high value contracts typically last for between 3 and 10
years and have been designed and packaged to enable businesses to
bid for the work in a competitive and equitable way. The Council
uses an evaluation model to measure the merit of each bid, and
bases its decision on a range of factors that offers the Council
the best value in terms of capability, quality of service and not
necessarily lowest price.
Usually, the Council will expect its contractors to hold
recognised accreditations in both quality and environmental
management and they will have undergone a rigorous examination of
their financial stability, technical competence, operational
methods, health and safety and employment practices etc.
The Council is seeking to enter into innovative partnership
arrangements with external organisations, which provide inward
investment and development of the services. We welcome enquiries
and ideas about alternative solutions to traditional methods of
service provision.
Standard procedures for letting contracts follows a
well-established tendering process. Information about current
contracts can be found :-
Works
Responsibility for the procurement of the Council's construction
and maintenance works programmes is undertaken by Engineering and
Building Services. This Service Area provides a
multi-disciplinary construction consultancy to the Council,
together with appointing consultants as necessary. In
addition, the Service Area deals with the preparation of tender
lists and the management of the tendering process for construction
projects.
Tender lists for the majority of projects are prepared using
companies vetted by Exor Management Services Ltd. Each tender
list comprises a number of companies included on a rotational
basis, together with the lowest bidder from the previous
appropriate tender.