Tenders
This page advises when a tender is appropriate and what form of tender will be required which is mainly dependent on the value of the goods to be purchased. Please follow the links if you would like more information on our current, planned or past tenders.
£30,000 or over
Orders over £30,000 must be tendered.
All tenders are issued through the Purchasing team.
£156,000 or over - EC tender
Orders over the EC tender limit, a single order or a period over 48 months must be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).
Note These thresholds are revised every even year and are issued on the 1st January.
EU Tender Regulations
The University must follow The Public Contracts Regulations 2006. Values are £173,934* for supplies and services, £4,348,350* for works.
*These figures are revised every even year.
These regulations became UK Law in February 1995 and emanate from the Treaty of Rome and the GATT agreement signed in Geneva in April 1979.
For information, we are not a GATT contracting authority but HEFCE and the NHS are. They have lower tender thresholds (£90,319) and have had to observe these rules since the 1970's.
The principal requirement of the regulations is that, in seeking offers in relation to a public supply contract, a contracting authority must use one of three procedures.
- Open procedure - whereby any person who is interested may submit a tender.
- Restricted procedure - whereby only those persons selected by the contracting authority may submit a tender.
- Negotiated procedure - whereby the contracting authority negotiates the terms of the contract with one or more persons selected by it.
The contracting authority is required to publicise its intention to seek offers in relation to a supply contract in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).
If the notice is to be also published in the United Kingdom press it must be limited to the information published in the OJEU and must not be published before the notice is sent to the Official Journal.
The various procedures have time limits to be allowed for the response by potential suppliers to express an interest and submit relevant documents.
The rules for the selection of suppliers are related to the business and professional status, their economic and financial standing and their technical capacity.
Where a contracting authority decides to award a contract, it is required to do so, on the basis either of the offer (including in-house bids) which offers the lowest price or the one which is the most economically advantageous.
If requested by an unsuccessful supplier the contracting authority must provide reasons as to why the supplier was unsuccessful.
There are various requirements in the Regulations. The most important is the requirement of the technical specification which the goods or services must meet. All specifications must be specified in the contract documents and, except in certain circumstances, these specifications must be defined by reference to European specifications.
It is also provided that, the specification may not refer to goods of a specific make or source to a particular process which has the effect of favouring or eliminating certain goods or suppliers.
These regulations also set time limits for the number of days at the various stages of the tender process.
e.g. Restricted procedure
Advert in EU Journal = 37 days
Number of days between issue and return of tender documents = 40 days
When assessing the contract value to see if it exceeds the thresholds, either take the total price of the contract, or where the total price is not specified the basis for calculating the estimated contract value shall be based on:
- For fixed term contracts of 48 months or less, the estimated total contract value.
- For contracts of indefinite duration, or with a term of more than 48 months, the 48 months value.
Related Links
 |
Contracts Finder (replacing Supply2Gov as of March 2011) |
Contracts Finder is a free new service for businesses, government buyers and
the public. This service comes from government under its
transparency commitment, and you can find:
- live contract opportunities
- closed tender documentation
- contract awards and contract documents
You can also subscribe to email alerts to receive updates on existing or new
items.
You can read more about Contracts Finder and how this benefits you as a business
the
guide from Business Link.
 |
Tenders.ac.uk |
tenders.ac.uk is a tender advertising system where the University can post tender documentation for suppliers to download and complete.
In turn, suppliers also register on the system via an automated process and flag up the products and services they are interested in supplying. If these match the supply areas we have posted, they'll receive an automated email alerting them that our tender might interest them.
 |
SIMAP |
The SIMAP project has as its objective the development of the information systems infrastructure needed to support the delivery of an effective public procurement policy in Europe, by providing contracting entities and suppliers with the information they need to manage the procurement process effectively. To visit the website, please follow the link below.
 |
Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) |
The TED Internet application provides interested users with access to the latest edition of the Official Journal and an archive of all documents that have appeared in the Supplement to the Official Journal over the past five years. It also contains documents whose deadline for receipt of tenders or requests to participate has expired.