Approaching the Market Guideline

Allowing potential suppliers sufficient time to respond to your request is fundamental to achieving value for money. Short tender advertising periods are likely to:

• Reduce the number of respondents;
• Increase the contract cost (as suppliers ‘build in’ the cost of risk due to inadequate time to consider all risks and to appropriately price them); and
• Damage the reputation of the State and your agency.

It is also important to remember that closing tenders during the Christmas or Easter period is not likely to lead to the best results – consider providing extra response time at these times of year.

Responding to tenders is often a costly exercise for suppliers – please allow them sufficient time to put in their best offer.

Rule D4.1A defines what the State believes is sufficient time for Open Tenders. For all other approaches to the market, the rules are less prescriptive, but in all instances, buyers should consider the risk and complexity of the procurement activity and provide enough time for suppliers to submit an appropriate offer.

Rule D4.1A only applies to procurement not subject to free trade agreements. For covered procurements, Rule D4.1B is more proscriptive with respect to minimum advertising times.

An industry briefing is a useful method of providing information about a Request to potential respondents. Briefings may be mandatory or non-mandatory and may be conducted prior to the Request being advertised (pre-tender briefing) or after the Request is advertised (tender briefings). 

Purpose and Timing of Briefing

Briefings, including site visits, may be required for purchases that are either complex, high-risk, high-value, unique in nature or where the site plays an important role in service scoping, design and delivery. Care should be taken not to divulge any commercially confidential information concerning the operating procedures of any current service provider(s) during the site visit. The number of personnel visiting the site should be limited and each visit should be conducted using a checklist of areas to view and report on. Site visits should be conducted allowing sufficient time to make the site visits useful.

Pre-Tender briefing

A pre-tender briefing is conducted after sector consultation and prior to the Request being released. Pre-tender briefings are also useful to reinforce the information provided in an Early Tender Advice posted on Tenders WA. 

Pre-tender briefings provide an opportunity for State agencies to discuss issues such as the potential market for the good or service, the benefits and potential risks of the good or service and obtain feedback from the industry. It is also an opportunity to talk through the proposed Request document, including the proposed scope, deliverables, service outcomes and critical dates in the tendering process.

Tender Briefing

A tender briefing is conducted after a Request is advertised on Tenders WA. If tender briefings are mandatory, then attendance at briefings must be included as a mandatory or pre-qualification requirement in the Request. This means that any supplier who does not attend the briefing must be excluded from evaluation, should they choose to submit a bid. It’s for this reason that mandatory tender briefings should only be used in limited circumstances. Mandatory briefings are the preferred method where a briefing is determined to be essential to assist respondents in completing their offers.

Tender briefings provide an opportunity for State agencies to discuss the Request document, including the specification or scope, the outcomes sought and the qualitative criteria against which offers will be evaluated. Tender briefings also provide potential respondents with the opportunity to ask questions about the Request.

Planning for a Briefing

Based on the information provided above, the State agency must decide in the planning stages of the procurement if a pre-tender or a tender briefing has any relevance or will be of benefit to potential respondents.

Pre-Tender Briefing

Once the State agency has decided to hold a pre-tender briefing, the details of the briefing session can be advertised on Tenders WA, together with an agenda and any necessary supporting reading material for potential respondents to read prior to attending the pre-tender briefing session.

Tender Briefing

Once the State agency has decided to hold a mandatory or non-mandatory tender briefing, the details of the briefing session should be inserted into the Request document and posted in the relevant section on Tenders WA (if applicable).

Choosing the Date 

Pre-Tender Briefing

When conducting a pre-tender briefing, ensure sufficient time has been allocated for potential respondents to make arrangements to attend the session, particularly for respondents located in regional areas or outside WA. State agencies must also allow sufficient time following the pre-tender briefing sessions to provide respondents with the opportunity to clarify any issues with the contact person and also to enable State agencies to make any amendments to the Request prior to it being advertised.

Tender Briefing

When conducting a tender briefing, ensure sufficient time has been allocated for potential respondents to familiarise themselves with the Request document and make arrangements to attend the briefing session, particularly respondents who are located in regional areas or outside WA. State agencies should also allow adequate time following the briefing session to provide respondents with the opportunity to clarify any issues with the contact person prior to the closing of the tender, as well as amend their offer if required.

Arrangements for the Briefing

In preparation for the briefing, ensure that you have organised the following:

• A convenient venue, with consideration for respondents located in regional areas;
• Nominated a person to take RSVPs (usually by email);
• An Agenda or Session Plan to help you focus on how you want the briefing session to proceed. If your request has a Technical Enquiries contact person and a General Enquiries contact person, it is useful to have both contact persons at the briefing;
• Ensure that the room is an adequate size with sufficient seating. It is advisable to allow for two persons from each organisation in case more turn up on the day;
• If conducting briefings remotely, ensure the appropriate invitations have been sent and all technology is operating as it should;
• Arrange for, and test any presentation aides that you intend on using, e.g. projector, laptop, speakers, etc;
• Arrange for someone to take notes/minutes for the duration of the briefing; and
• Inform reception of the briefing, i.e. date and time, the room it will be held in, how many visitors are expected and who to notify when the visitors arrive.

Conducting a Briefing

At the briefing ensure that the following occurs:

1. A record of attendees has been taken. For a mandatory tender briefing, attendees must be informed that in order for their offer to be considered valid, they must register under the legal entity (name) they intend to submit their offer. This is particularly relevant for consortium offers. Failure to comply will result in a respondent's offer not being considered.
2. For a pre-tender briefing session, discuss the relevance of any material provided earlier, and present information relating to the upcoming Request.
3. For a tender briefing session, explain the layout and information provided in the Request document, including the reason for calling the briefing; e.g. capacity to meet strict specification requirements and/or timeframes, unusual number of special conditions, etc.
4. Record all questions and answers from the pre-tender or tender briefing.

After the briefing:

1. Any amendment or clarification of an issue should be circulated to all eligible potential respondents via a formal written addendum or communication.
2. All questions received post briefing should be directed to the relevant contact person named in the Request document. Any information that is provided post briefing should be general in nature or for clarification purposes only. If a respondent raises a specific issue that is likely to give them an advantage over other respondents, that information should be circulated in a formal written addendum and made available to all respondents.
3. A formal written addendum must also be uploaded to Tenders WA to be circulated to potential respondents who have downloaded the Request from Tenders WA.

Effective competition helps ensure that procurement processes deliver value for money outcomes. During a procurement process it may become apparent that effective competition is lacking in the market, or an event may occur which significantly reduces competition. For example, your procurement planning had revealed a number of viable suppliers and only one submits a tender, or you have sought clarifications from a number of Respondents and all except one withdraw.

Value for Money outcome when competition is reduced

In instances of reduced competition, consideration should be given as to whether the achievement of a value for money outcome is possible. Considerations should include whether:

• The procurement planning research was accurate and suitably comprehensive for the complexity and risk of the project;
• The scoping and specifications are correct and free from defect;
• There is sufficient competition still present in the process; and
• It can reasonably be expected that a value for money outcome is still achievable in the circumstances.

Options available

If effective competition is impaired then a State agency should consider what options are available, they may include:

• Continuing with the procurement;
• Remedying the defect (where contractually possible within the procurement process and fair to do so. Legal advice should be sought prior to using this option);
• Terminating the procurement and starting a revised procurement process (where contractually possible within the procurement process and fair to do so. Legal advice should be sought prior to using this option); or
• Terminating the procurement and revisiting the business need.
• In weighing the options all relevant factors should be considered, including the:
• Extent to which competition is impaired;
• Significance of the expenditure;
• Impact on project timelines;
• Risk to government and the general public; and
• Ensuring compliance with all other Western Australian Procurement Rules and government policies.

Documenting the Decision

A State agency’s decision must be reasonable and made on justifiable grounds. Irrespective of which option the State agency chooses, the State agency’s decision should be documented at the time the decision is made. This enhances probity and assists in mitigating any perception of bias.

You may be nominated as the contact person for potential respondents (tenderers) to contact throughout the tender process. This is a very important role as it is the tenderers only contact point for any clarifications or questions relating to any part of the tender. It is recommended that you keep an enquiries log to track questions and answers during the tendering period.

Tendering enquiries

If you receive a question regarding accessing/receiving tender documents or how/when to submit tender documents, these questions can be answered by yourself or the relevant Tendering Office. If you are responsible for these queries, ensure you have a thorough understanding of the tender and how to submit an offer.

Request, contractual or policy enquiries

It is likely that you may receive phone calls enquiring about the tender or contractual and policy issues. Usually, potential respondents ask questions such as: 

• How do I lodge an offer?
• How do I answer the Mandatory Requirements?
• What are the Compliance and Disclosure Requirements? 
• How do I answer Qualitative Criteria?

Ensure you are familiar with all aspects of the tender and how to adequately respond. If you are unsure about a question you have been asked, contact the Department of Finance.

Very simple, straight-forward specification questions

Sometimes you may receive questions from potential tenderer asking very simple, straightforward specification questions. If you can answer these questions without further clarifying the tender document and without giving any new information, you can provide the answer straight away.

In practice, this means that you will probably read out or re-state the specification as per the request document or give answers which can be derived by common sense.

Questions requiring further information or clarification

If you receive questions asking for any new information, or questions that require you to clarify the specification, an addendum may need to be issued to ensure that all potential tenderers receive the same information.

A potential tenderer may call you and ask you questions such as:

• What do you really mean by…?
• So what’s the interrelationship between this request and work carried out by another organisation?
• Can you give me some more background information?
• I don’t understand the information in a particular paragraph. Can you clarify it?
• Or any other questions which require specific information or which may give the potential respondent an advantage over other respondents.
• Or any other question leading to an answer which could be perceived to give the potential respondent an advantage.

If this occurs, carefully take down the question or ask the caller to email their question to you. Inform the potential respondent that you will prepare an answer to these questions, and that it will be issued as an addendum to all potential respondents to ensure equity and fairness.

It is important to note that the Request closing date may need to be changed if an addendum is issued towards the end of the tendering period and a substantial change to the tender document has occurred.

Also, if you are unsure as to whether a question is a simple matter, or whether it may require the issuing of an addendum, inform the potential tenderer that you will need to think about their question, and discuss the matter with your manager or the Department of Finance.