Lessons learned added to this page in July 2008 appear in bold.

Key lessons learned include:

Capacity: Ensure that you have the capacity to evaluate your bids, not just in terms of experienced personnel, but also administrative resources, meeting rooms, reading time and storage space. You can ask for bids to be sent to you electronically (and you can also stipulate that bidders limit their submission to a specific number of pages).

Scoping: Bear in mind the limitations on changing the scope of your scheme once you have issued your OJEU Contract Notice. Be as clear as possible with bidders as to what you are trying to achieve (without stifling innovation by bidders) so that they do not waste bid costs on options that you do not pursue. Also be aware of the constraints once the dialogue has closed and make sure that you finalise your requirements during the dialogue.

Know your bids: Analyse and challenge; investigate any gaps or ambiguities before selecting your preferred partner and make sure you understand the effect of any assumptions in the bids; make good use of the opportunity to clarify, specify and fine tune final bids from both bidders. From the point you choose a preferred / selected bidder (PB / SB) you will be very constrained in what you can change (from the bid that you accepted) so make sure you know and own the detail. Know your deal and know your partner - engage with bidders to understand their drivers and motivations as well as pressure points. This proved vital in Bristol and Leeds in the achievement of a timely close.

Meetings with bidders. Ensuring confidentiality is essential. Keep meetings structured with clear objectives and ensure that outcomes are communicated and acted on. Stick to the timetable of planned meetings

Get to know the bidders' teams. You will be working with one of the teams for a long time - up to 15 years - so getting an impression of the team (and in particular, the permanent members), the corporate culture and their strengths and weaknesses is essential.

Understanding of transformational outcomes: Is there enough evidence that the bidders understand the transformational aspect of BSF and the importance of integrated, connected, transformational ICT and high-quality sustainable design? If you fail to communicate your outcomes sufficiently clearly, then you run the risk of them not being delivered.

Keep records to use for comparisons and for debriefing unsuccessful bidders and always be aware of Freedom of Information (FOI) requirements.

Management of the supply chain: Check how the supply chain is going to be managed and integrated. It is essential to ask for, and to receive, strong evidence of support from within the supply chain.

Understand the LEP: Be clear about the role of the LEP, how it will interact with stakeholders under the SPA and how the Business Plan will operate. Make sure you and the bidders have a common understanding of how, in particular, the new project approval process under the SPA will work. Make sure you use the KPIs to drive out added value and assist you in delivering corporate priorities.

Schools

Consider how the dialogue with bidders will involve schools: When setting out the arrangements for the dialogue with bidders, it is important to consider how schools (including teachers, pupils and parents) are going to be able to engage with the bidders on their school schemes. This is important to ensure that schools continue to be engaged with the process during the procurement period. Make sure that meetings with stakeholders are well managed so that bidders are treated equitably and that stakeholders understand the bids and any constraints.

Ensure that there is no mismatch between what stakeholders and the local authority understand the bids to be. Governing Bodies and Diocesan, Trust, Foundation and Academy bodies will also need to be involved to varying degrees throughout the process. Eventually they will need to enter into appropriate agreements with the local authority to enable delivery of the scheme. Make sure they are kept informed and involved in relevant discussions.

Make sure there is clarity about the impact on schools of phasing and decant proposals contained in the bids and that this is manageable from the schools' perspective. Ensure that schools are aware of and confident of managing the obligations they will need to take on.

Design

Design evaluation: Involve stakeholders in the evaluation of designs and bidders: for example, allow bidders to present direct to schools. (Maintaining bidder confidentiality around this time needs to be handled carefully.)

Use of DQI: Use the Design Quality Indicator (DQI) for Schools at ITCD stage to evaluate bidders' designs against your brief; this is essential to help ensure that high standards of design are maintained.

ICT

Service delivery: Focus on service delivery proposals. Hardware provision is the easy part for the private sector, but the critical area is how they provide a service to the customer.

Competitive Dialogue

One of the most effective ways to test bidders' proposals is to talk through with them how they would deliver in practice. During the competitive dialogue meetings, run through a number of scenarios with bidders so that you understand how they would respond to issues that might arise in delivering the BSF programme. This may provide a valuable insight into their partnering skills.

Throughout the dialogue phase, the local authority should manage a Key Issues List which identifies those remaining issues that affect price and risk. This should be used to inform the Principals Meeting and be updated throughout the dialogue. The list should be used to identify any issues that need to be resolved to allow close of dialogue and identify mechanisms for dealing with any outstanding issues that can only be dealt with once the dialogue has closed (e.g. final calibration of payment mechanisms).

At least one Principals Meeting (led by PfS) is needed about six weeks prior to close of dialogue, in order to ensure a common understanding of the content of the bids, any issues still requiring resolution and to assess readiness to close the dialogue.

In order to achieve certainty of risk and price, the drafting of all commercial points and all derogations from standard form drafting needs to be agreed before the close of dialogue.

The local authority must resolve issues that affect price and risk in advance of closing the dialogue and not allow the principle of 'clarifying, fine tuning and specifying' to carry forward unresolved issues into later stages which could have been resolved during the dialogue. Crucially, the local authority will not be able to make substantive changes to its requirements once the dialogue is closed and so must ensure that any options are thoroughly explored during the dialogue and that the local authority is confident that the solutions put forward meet its needs prior to closing the dialogue.

The Preferred Bidder letter should be finalised with both bidders (whilst they are still in competition) prior to the selection of the preferred / selected bidder. It should be used as a tool for identifying and clarifying outstanding issues on which the bids will then be finally evaluated. The letter should identify any clarification and confirmation to be carried out with the ultimate preferred / selected bidder prior to financial close and each bidder should indicate acceptance of that consortium's respective letter so that it can be signed by the selected bidder once the local authority's decision has been made.

Allow sufficient time for evaluation: A thorough evaluation processes is essential to ensuring that the right long-term partner is selected for the LEP. There is a risk that, in order to maximise the time in dialogue with bidders and/or meet key committee deadlines, evaluation periods become shorter and are pressured. This may lead to important issues not being identified and as a result the local authority may not get the best it could have out of the procurement.

Communications

Press and publicity: From preferred /selected bidder onwards, press releases and events require a joined -up approach between the BSF teams and the press offices of the local authority, the contractors and PfS. Each stakeholder has different priorities for external communications, and messages can easily become mixed. Establish a virtual Communications group between the lead press officers as soon as possible once the Selected Bidder decision is made - this will help with the initial press release and with future events, announcements and eventual school openings. The press officers from the local authority, Selected Bidder (including ICT partners and any other co-investors) and PfS should be primary contact, with link to the relevant BSF teams and project directors. Contact Amy Leonard, Communications Director at PfS to request quotes.