What to include in your community services offer

A government agency will need to know your: 

• legal entity name or trading name
• Australian Company Number (if you have one)
• Australian Business Name and Number
• registered address and business address
• name and telephone number of an authorised contact person. 
• if your organisation employs less than 20 people
• if your organisation is an Australian Disability Enterprise or a Registered Aboriginal Business 
• if your organisation is a not-for-profit organisation or local government authority
• whether your organisation’s financial information is available via the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission’s register 

Each Request will set out the information required. Once you submit an offer to the government agency, you cannot transfer or assign your interest to another person, company or organisation without prior written approval from the government agency. 

Government agencies may need to know if your organisation has the financial strength and stability necessary to provide the required services, so you may need to demonstrate your financial capability. For example, you may be asked to submit an audited financial statement as part of your offer. If the agency does not explicitly request this, there is no need to supply financial details. 

If your organisation is unable to provide all the required services, you could consider entering into a collaborative arrangement with other organisations. We have developed A Quick Guide to Collaborative Tendering to help community service organisations by providing some background information on collaborative tendering and service delivery arrangements (often called consortium arrangements).

If your organisation cannot deliver the requested services independently, you could also partner with another service provider. Government agencies require clear identification of the legal entity they will be contracting with. If you are considering this approach, please state clearly in your offer how this relationship will operate (e.g. lead contractor/subcontractor), including details of any governance arrangements which have been agreed. 

If you don’t meet a mandatory requirement, your offer will be eliminated from consideration. 

Qualitative criteria are used by the evaluation panel to identify the requirements of the Request and evaluate your ability to successfully perform the services. 

Examples of qualitative criteria include: 

• ability to provide the services
• the service model (methodology) your organisation will use to achieve the desired community outcome
• the skills, capacity and experience of the organisation
• demonstrated experience in providing similar services
• organisation and planning capability

To respond more effectively to these requirements: 

• address all of the qualitative criteria
• use examples to back up your claims against each specific criterion
• use each qualitative criterion as a heading and describe the things that specifically demonstrate your organisation’s ability to meet the criterion 
• be clear and concise 
• if a page limit is specified please observe it

Qualitative criteria are usually weighted. Give significant consideration to those criteria with a higher weighting, but make sure you address all the criteria. 

State your price in the format asked for in the Request. For example, if the Request asks for a lump sum price, and you submit an hourly rate instead, your offer may not be evaluated. 

Where a fixed budget is set by the government agency, specify the volume of services your organisation is able to provide for that fixed price. 

You must also be prepared to maintain your price for a period of time known as the ‘offer validity period’. The offer validity period will be specified in the Request. 

The DCSP Policy aims to ensure fair and appropriate pricing and costing of community services. A fair and appropriate price includes all real and anticipated costs incurred from delivering, administering, monitoring and evaluating the service. All of these costs need to be considered over the full length of the service agreement and can be captured through historical data, research and assumptions (based on trends and other factors). This will then form the basis for the fair and appropriate price your organisation offers to the government agency. 

A fair and appropriate price will include some allowance for an increase in the costs of delivering services over the life of the service agreement. You can and should include a ‘margin’ or contingency in calculating your costs when determining the best price to submit in your offer.