TENDERING (esp for Public Sector work)
Submitted by Liz on Thu, 18/12/2008 - 13:01.
I went to a very useful workshop this morning on tendering for public sector work. I wish someone had told me this a year ago, so I thought I'd share the key points with you.
FINDING OUT ABOUT TENDERS
The public sector advertises its work publicly, but you need to be in the loop to hear about it. You need to sign-up to http://www.supply2gov.co.uk to get started. HOWEVER most councils have their own e-tendering/e-procurement portal, or have bought into something like ALITO, so you may need to register several times in several places.
HOWEVER, (and this is the bit I wish someone had told me before) you will automatically be excluded from tenders if the value of the project you are bidding for would be more than 30% of your annual turnover. For some projects this can be 20% of turnover.
As all work over £10k has to be tendered for, this means if you can't show accounts that prove your turnover is more than £50k, you won't be able to get the work.
I have three suggestions for getting started with tenders that are possible no matter how small you are.
1. Look on the tender sites for notifications to tender to be part of a FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT, Framework Agreements are when a public body knows it will need to put work out to tender, but generally for amounts less than the £10k ceiling. What they will do is get a group of say printers, or graphic designers, or caterers together, and make them exclusively part of a framework agreement usually lasting for 3 to 4 years. If you aren't in the framework agreement, you can't bid for the work. if you are in the Framework you stand a good chance of getting one or more contracts.
2. Use http://www.skillfair.co.uk which is for small public and private sector contracts and tenders. Its about £150 for a year's subscription, but we have found it well worth it. You can have a month's free trial too.
3. Collaborate with other small businesses. And if you can't find anyone to collaborate with, join https://www.vengroup.com/ to get your business involved.
