Hello friends 👋
This week we are covering Level 2 for Procurement and Tendering. Here is the link to the Level 1 post if you’ve missed it: Procurement and Tendering - Level 1.
I would highly advise you to go through the candidate guide and the QS pathway guide to understand the basics.
DISCLAIMER: The following is not an exhaustive set of notes, but it's an attempt to help those who, like me at the beginning, did not know where to start! Please feel free to let me know if I have said anything incorrect or out of date!
So what is a Level 2 Procurement and Tendering?
The RICS pathway guide suggests that to effectively demonstrate your competence at this level you must show that you can (at a minimum):
Apply your knowledge to the implementation of the procurement routes selected for your projects and to carrying out tendering and negotiation processes relevant to them.
Implementing procurement routes such as traditional, design and build and management forms
It won’t be expected that you have worked in detail with every procurement type, this is highly dependent on your experience. If in your Summary of Experience, you note that you have worked on Design and Build projects, it’s imperative you know the process of how this works.
If you need to review each of the 4 main routes please check my first post on this competency.
Producing and/or compiling tender documentation such as a letter of invitation, form of tender, health and safety documentation, design documentation and contractual details (Please note: pricing documents are covered under the Quantification and costing of construction works)
This is fairly straightforward, your firm may have a standard tender documentation list, you should know what each of these documents is and their purposes.
If you work for a large infrastructure client, the likelihood is that they will have their own suite of tender documentation templates so you must ensure you are aware of them.
Examples of documentation include: methodology statements, works information packs, health and safety statements, case study templates, conflict of interest statements etc.
Carrying out of tendering and negotiation processes such as single and two-stage tendering, the use of codes of practice and electronic tendering.
You should know the tender process from end to end. If you are working on a public project do you have to abide by any procurement regulations? What are those regulations? Ensure you have a rough idea of the procurement thresholds.
Do you understand the difference between single and two-stage tendering? Where have you had the experience of this and what role did you play? What might negotiation involve? Generally, this occurs after tenders have been received, a supplier is preferred however the supplier has submitted a qualification that needs to be negotiated out.
I know many will say that this breaches procurement rules because they deem that the submission of any qualifications results in the tenderer’s submission being non-compliant. However, there will never be a time where a contractor submits a tender without some qualifications. They will do their best to represent their interests, and our job as commercial representatives is to recognise this and come to a fair and reasonable agreement to enable the project to proceed to construction.
What codes of practice are you aware of? If you are not aware of any, please have a look at the JCT Practice Note 2017 as a starter. If your client is a large infrastructure client, they may have their own codes of practice for procurement which they must follow as a public sector organisation.
In my short career thus far, I have never seen tenders being received or managed via manual postal systems. It’s always been e-tendering. You should know the e-tendering procedure, what it requires and how it is executed.
That’s it for this post folks.
If you have any comments/queries please drop a message.