Identify suppliers & specify requirement

Research should be undertaken to establish suitable suppliers to invite to tender. Preferred suppliers should be given preference; if there are no suitable preferred suppliers departments are encouraged to consider contracted suppliers.

The aim is to invite sufficient suppliers to tender to receive at least three tenders. It is therefore usual to invite between three and six suppliers depending on the requirement and likely response rate.

A specification describes the goods / services required. Departments are free to draw up their own specification. If departments require assistance this Specification template provides the categories of information that should be provided for the supplier to compile a response, however the document is not intended to be prescriptive and is by no means exhaustive. Departments are encouraged to include as much information as possible at this stage.

The Evaluation Criteria (and the weightings to be applied to those criteria) that will be used to evaluate tenders need to be defined and documented. Ideally this information should be made available to the suppliers in the invitation to tender.