Scope of contract
You should then summarise the scope of the contract. This will include the two core requirements for an EDRM/Enterprise Content Management solution and associated supplier services and should detail which sections the functional and technical and service requirements are detailed in. It should define the phases of the implementation and the preferred timetable if you have agreed it.
You should define any matters that are beyond the scope of the contract. It may be that you want to notify suppliers that you are excluding a managed service bid where the supplier takes over the running of the system. It may be that you are excluding an area of the education organisation.
Procurement process and evaluation criteria
You then need to outline how the procurement process will run from the sending of ITTs to short listed suppliers to the selection of the preferred supplier. You may decide to run an open meeting where suppliers can come and discuss the requirements and the procurement process with the project team.
You should arrange a clarification process whereby suppliers can submit questions about the ITT and SOR and the team will issue written responses. You then need to indicate in general terms the criteria you will use to evaluate the tenders received, this is usually based on a mix of technical merit; costs and quality. You can provide more details and give an indication of priority.
If you intend to create a second shortlist of 2 – 3 suppliers at this stage you should indicate that. If you require a presentation or demonstration from the short listed suppliers at that stage you should make that known and if you require reference site visits you should make that known as well.
Terms and conditions
Most importantly, you will want to include in an appendix a standard set of contract terms and conditions for the project if you have them. You may either require all bidders to simply accept them if they are standard terms you use for all IT procurements or you may invite suppliers to signal whether they will accept them and if not to indicate any specific clauses which they would want to change. However, here you need to be careful to avoid protracted negotiations. If you do not have them you should take advice from your procurement section or from consultants including the Office for Government Commerce.
