Sample

Invitation to Tender

Managed Removals Relocation & Furniture Recycling Services

Contract Reference:

Date upon which the Invitation to Tender period began:

Final date for submission of queries:

Tender Return Date:

Company details

CONTENTS PAGE

SECTION 1: INSTRUCTIONS FOR TENDERERS

1. General Information2. Points of Clarification 3. Confidentiality4. Tender Preparation5. Tender Submission6. Award Criteria7. Tender Timetable8. Award Process9. Tenderers Warranties

SECTION 2: SPECIFICATION

1. Introduction/Background

2. Outline of the requirements

3. Method statements

SECTION 1: INSTRUCTIONS FOR TENDERERS

1. General Information

1.1Who is seeking seeking tenders for the provision of a Managed Removals, Relocation & Furniture Recycling Services as further detailed in Section 2 in accordance with this Invitation to Tender and in particular the draft contract contained in section 3. Who is managing this procurement process in accordance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (the “Regulations”). This is a services Agreement being procured under the open procedure.

1.2 The purpose of the tender is to find a provider of commercial removal, relocation & re-cycling services for Name. The type and scale of projects is variable. Projects may in-clude the movement of large departments with several hundred staff and associated equipment to new premises or the movement of a small number of staff within the same building. The majority of work takes place within Name administrative borders. We fa-vour the recycling of furniture that is surplus to the organisation requirements and the disposing of surplus materials in land fill to be kept to a minimum. Further details are given in Section 2.

1.3 Tenderers must comply with the terms of this Invitation to Tender and should therefore read all of the document carefully and take any independent financial or legal advice, if necessary as early as possible in the process.

1.4 Prior to commencing formal evaluation, Tender Responses will be checked to ensure they are fully compliant with the conditions of Tender. Non-compliant Tender Responses may be rejected by the organisation. Tender Responses which are deemed by the Coun-cil to be fully compliant will proceed to evaluation. These will be evaluated using the se-lection criteria and weightings detailed in the table set out at paragraph 6 below.

1.5 Following evaluation of the compliant Tenders and approval of the outcome the Council intends to appoint the successful Provider to enter into a Services Agreement.

1.6 The Council reserves the right not to conclude any Agreement as a result of the current procurement process.

2. Points of Clarification2.1 Tenderers should read these instructions carefully before completing the Tender

documentation. Failure to comply with these requirements for completion and submission of the Tender response may result in the rejection of the Tender. Tenderers are advised therefore to acquaint themselves fully with the extent and nature of the services and contractual obligations. These instructions constitute the Conditions of Tender. Participation in the tender process automatically signals that the Tenderer accepts these Conditions of Tender.

2.2 Tenderers shall ensure that each and every sub-contractor, consortium member and adviser abides by the terms of these instructions and the Conditions of Tender.

2.3 Any general queries about the tender process which may affect the preparation of

your tender should be raised without delay. These should be made in writing with the Contact Officer, Name address contact and e-mail address

2.4 Any specific points of clarification, or areas of concern regarding the Specification or Draft Contract must be notified in writing to the Contact Officer on or before the final date for submission of queries specified on the front cover page of this Invitation to Tender. At this stage, the organisation will consider all such requests received from tenderers. All requests for clarification about the requirements or the process of this procurement exercise shall be made in accordance with these Instructions.

2.5 The organisation will endeavour to answer all questions as quickly as possible, but cannot guarantee a minimum response time. The Regulations require that contracting authorities respond to any request for clarification at least 4 days’ before the deadline for receipt of Tenders. In order to satisfy this requirement, the Council has designated a specific window of time to deal with clarification requests from Tenderers

2.6 Clarification requests can be submitted [via e-mail only] to the Contract Officer at the address in paragraph 2.3 above.

2.7 No further requests for clarifications will be accepted after Tender submission date

2.8 In order to ensure equality of treatment of Tenderers, the organisation intends to publish the questions and clarifications raised by Tenderers together with the organisation responses (but not the source of the questions) to all participants on a regular basis.

2.9 Tenderers should indicate if a query is of a commercially sensitive nature – where disclosure of such query and the answer would or would be likely to prejudice its commercial interests. However, if the organisation at its sole discretion does not either; consider the query to be of a commercially confidential nature or one which all Tenderers would potentially benefit from seeing both the query and Council’s response, the organisation will:

2.9.1 invite the Tenderer submitting the query to either declassify the query and allow the query along with the organisation response to be circulated to all Tenderers; or

2.9.2 request the Tenderer, if it still considers the query to be of a commercially confidential nature, to withdraw the query.

2.9.3 The organisation reserves the right not to respond to a request for clarification or to circulate such a request where it considers that the answer to that request would or would be likely to prejudice its commercial interests.

2.9.4 The Tenderer shall not make contact with any other employee, agent or consultant of the Council who are in any way connected with this procurement exercise during the period of this procurement exercise, unless instructed otherwise by the Council.

2.9.5 The organisation reserves the right to amend, add to or withdraw all, or any part of this ITT at any time during the procurement exercise.

2.9.6 The organisation is prevented from undertaking negotiation of any terms of this Invitation to Tender including, without limitation the Draft Contract. Consequently, it is vital that tenderers utilise the opportunity of raising points of clarification on the content of the Specification and Draft Contract on or before the date referred to in paragraph 2.7.

3 Confidentiality and Freedom of Information

3.1This ITT is confidential and it is a condition of your continued involvement in this tender process that you undertake to keep confidential this Invitation to Tender and all other information, whether written or oral, concerning the business and affairs of the organisation which you have received or obtained as a result of the information supplied to you in connection with this ITT, or in discussion relating to it, other than any such information which is in the public domain other than by breach of this obligation or other act or omissions of the Tenderer . You shall not disclose you have been invited to bid, nor discuss the bid that you intend to make nor canvass for its acceptance, other than with professional advisers who need to be consulted. In particular bids shall not be canvassed or discussed with any other tenderer or member or officer of the organisation.

3.2The condition referred to in paragraph 3.1 above shall apply equally to any sub-contractor or professional advisor consulted by you and it shall be your responsibility to ensure that any such subcontractor or professional advisor abides by the terms of this Invitation to Tender.

3.3 If a tenderer fails to observe its undertakings under this paragraph 3, or in any other way, does not treat this Invitation to Tender as confidential, the will organisation without limitation to any other remedies it may have, reject their tender and may decide not to invite the tenderer to tender for future work.

3.4Tenderers should note that the organisation is subject to the provisions of the FOIA and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. This means that information may be subject to disclosure to the public unless an exemption applies. This includes such things as (not exclusively):

3.4.1 information in any tender submitted to the organisation;

3.4.2 information in any contract to which the organisation is a party;

3.4.3 information about costs, including invoices submitted to the organisa-tion; and

3.4.4 correspondence and other papers.

3.5 In the event that a Tenderer considers that any information supplied by it is either commercially sensitive or confidential in nature, this should be specific-ally highlighted with the reasons for its sensitivity given and an explanation of the grounds for exempting that information from disclosure. The Tenderer should note that even where they have indicated that they consider the in-formation to be commercially sensitive or confidential in nature, the organisa-tion may be required to disclose it under the FOIA if a request is received. Please note that information marked as commercially sensitive or confidential by the Tenderer should not be taken to mean that the organisation accepts any duty of confidence by virtue of that marking.

4 Tender Preparation 4.1Tenderers not complying with any mandatory requirements that are contained

in this ITT will be rejected. Mandatory requirements are denoted where the words “shall” or “must” are used.

4.2 If, at any time after receipt of the ITT, a tenderer decides it does not wish to complete the tendering process the Contract Officer must be notified of this decision without delay. In such circumstances the tenderer must destroy the ITT and all other documentation it has received in connection with this ITT to-gether with any copies it has made. Failure to comply with this paragraph 4.2 may mean the tenderer is not invited to tender for future work.

4.3No alteration or addition shall be made by tenderers to any part of the ITT to Tender. Any attempt by a tenderer to make changes to any part of this ITT may result in the organisation considering that their tender submission fails to comply with the rules of this tender process and reject the tender as a non-compliant bid.

4.4Tenderer’s attention is drawn to the fact that the Form of Tender requires an unequivocal offer to be made to the Council to provide the services and enter into the terms of the contract contained in section 3. Consequently tenders shall not be qualified or accompanied by statements that might be construed as rendering the tender equivocal. The organisation decision as to whether or not a tender is in an acceptable form will be final.

4.5A fully compliant bid must be submitted.

4.6Tenderers must obtain for themselves at their own responsibility and expense all information necessary for the preparation of their tender. Information sup-plied to tenderers by the organisation or contained in the organisation publica-tions is for general guidance. Tenderers must satisfy themselves by their own investigations as to the accuracy of any such information and no responsibility is accepted by the organisation for any loss or damage of whatever kind and howsoever caused arising from the use by tenderers of such information in so far as is permissible by law.

4.7Tenderers should note that they shall be responsible for all of their own costs and expenses in connection with or arising out of their response to this Invita-tion to Tender and the preparation of the bid submissions and other require-ments of this Invitation to Tender. The organisation shall not accept liability for any costs incurred by the tenderer in preparation or submission of their bids.

4.8 It is the organisation(s) policy to ask for a parental guarantee where the ten-derer is a subsidiary undertaking as defined by Section 736 of the Companies Act 1985. Such guarantee would require the parent company to carry out the obligations of the successful tenderer under the contract if the tenderer failed

to do so. If you are a subsidiary undertaking but do not believe that in your circumstances it is appropriate for a parental guarantee to be given, you must provide the Council with the full reasons why in the Form of Tender. It will be in the organisation absolute discretion whether, following a review of the ten - derers submission, it requires a parental guarantee or not. If a guarantee is required, the form of the guarantee will be forwarded by the organisation and it will be a requirement of the contract award that such a guarantee is executed.

4.9Any decision made in connection with paragraph 4.8 above shall have no ef-fect on any other guarantee required by the organisation under the Contract Documents.

5 Tender Submission

5.1All tender submissions shall be made in accordance with the terms of this ITT, otherwise the bid may be rejected.

5.2 In order to evaluate the tender, the following documents must be completed and submitted:-

5.2.1 Form of Tender;

5.2.2 Pricing Schedule;

5.2.3 Contract Questionnaire;

5.2.4 Method Statements

5.2.5 CV’s of key personnel; copies of accreditations, e.g Investors in People, ISO accreditation etc; and copy of company policies, e.g Equal Opportunities, Health and Safety, Training]

For the avoidance of doubt there is no requirement to return any other parts of this Invitation to Tender and if you do so the organisation may dispose of any such documents received without reviewing them.

5.3All submissions shall be in hard copy loose-leaf format (showing the name of the tenderer with all pages numbered). Tenderers shall supply two copies of the hard copy submission. All copies of the Tender, on what ever medium supplied, must be identical. It is the Tenderer’s sole responsibility to ensure that all copies of the Tender it supplies are identical and in submitting a Tender it warrants, represents and undertakes that they are identical.

5.4All tenders shall be returned either in the envelope provided or an envelope without marks or signs or any reference which may indicate who the tenderer is. The envelope shall be marked: Tender for Removal Services Contract Tender Ref, and addressed to:

Full address and location

and shall arrive there by Time spec on the submission date given on the front page of this Invitation to Tender.

5.5Subject to Paragraph 5.9 under NO CIRCUMSTANCES will Tenders be ac-cepted which arrive after Time Spec on the Tender Return Date given on the front page of this Invitation to Tender. It is the Tenderer’s responsibility to en-sure the arrival of a complete set of documents on time. An incomplete set of documents, or a tender submitted in part will result in the tender submission being invalid.

5.6Where tenders are delivered by courier or by any other method than by Royal Mail they must be delivered to Location of delivery during normal working hours (9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 9.00 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on Friday excluding statutory holidays). Tenders shall not be handed to any other organisation employee or Member. Tenders delivered by hand to any other location will not qualify and will be rejected.

5.7Whichever method of delivery is used, Tenderers shall endeavour to ensure that the envelope or any franking thereon does not bear any marks or signs or any reference which may indicate who the tenderer is.

5.8Tenders shall not be sent and will not be accepted by fax or electronic mail.

5.9Any queries about the tender submission process can be made to the Con-tract Officer whose details are set out in paragraph 2.1 above.

5.10 Date Tenders or incomplete tenders may be accepted where a Tenderer iden-tifies to the absolute satisfaction of the Contract Officer (whose decision shall be absolute and final) extraordinary circumstances beyond the reasonable management and control of the Tenderer prevented the Tender from being delivered by the time specified at Paragraph 5.5.

5.11 If there appears to be an error in a tender submission or supporting informa-tion the Contract Officer shall seek clarification and shall at their discretion permit manifest or minor errors to be corrected, otherwise the tenderer will be invited to confirm or withdraw its bid.

5.12 The organisation may require Tenders to respond to written questions in order to clarify any tender submissions. Details of such questions will be provided to each tender if required.

5.13 The Form of Tender, Pricing Schedule and Contract Questionnaire shall be signed in the manner prescribed on the forms.

5.14In order to prepare for the evaluation process, tenderers are required to

identify nominated key personnel who may be contacted with all queries. The or-ganisation reserves the right to request additional information from tenderers if it considers, in its sole discretion, such information is required to enable the organ-isation l to understand the bid submission for the purposes of the evaluation pro-cess. During the course of the evaluation process tenderers shall be required to make available key personnel.

5.15The organisation reserves the right in exceptional circumstances and after the opening of tenders to enter into discussion with any tenderer.

5.16Your Tender should remain open for acceptance for a period of sixty (60) days. A Tender valid for a shorter period may be rejected.

5.17If, pursuant to the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment regu-lations 2006, staff may transfer to the successful tenderer following award, you will need to include a paragraph dealing with this point. In particular before in-formation on such staff Tenders can be transferred to Tenderers they will need to enter into a Data Transfer Agreement which you can obtain from legal services.

6 Award Criteria

6.1The Tender process will be conducted to ensure that Tenders are evaluated fairly.

6.2 Account will also be taken of any factors which may impact on the Tenderers suitability that emerge from the tendering process. If the Tenderers circumstances change significantly at any time during the tender process from the position stated in the contract questionnaire this may lead to the Tenderer no longer being able to participate further in the Tender process. Tenderers must immediately inform the Council of any such changes.

6.3 Tenderers response to the ITT and any other information, specifically related to the evaluation of Tenders and requested by the Council in this ITT will be evaluated against the evaluation criteria, details of which can be found in the table below:

6.4 Prices must be fixed for the initial 2 years of the contract, thereafter prices will be subject to a contract review that will take place not later than 3 month before November 2012. In any event any price agreed will be no greater than the prevailing RPI at the time of application.

EVALUATION CRITERIA WEIGH MARKS

TING

Price

Labour

Transport

Packages & Containers

40% 30 marks

5 marks

5 marks

Method Statement 45% 10 points will be given for question A, 5 points each for the questions B - E men-tioned in section 2

Question F will hold 15 marks

Company Questionnaire 15% Capacity to undertake work of the nature in-dicated in the tender documents.

This will be taken from the answers given to financial ca-pacity, references from work carried out of similar nature and staff employed. – Please see sections 2, 6 & 7 of company questionnaire.

5 points will be given to each area.

Contractors must demonstrate how they possess BS8522 or equival-ent

Pass/fail A fail mark in this area will lead to non-consideration if the tender

Contractors Must be members of the British association of Re-movers Commercial Moving Group (CMG

Pass/Fai A fail mark in this area will lead to non-consideration if the tender

7 Pricing ScheduleFor the purpose of evaluation of the price element only, we will score price on 8 days where the following criteria are taken in to account.

Day project x 6 vans ( 7.5 tonne ) per day x 3 foreman per dayx 7 drivers per dayx 7 packers per dayx 1 project manager per day

2720 standard lidded cratesAll work carried out during normal office hours.Mileage during project 5600 miles

8 Tender Timetable

Set out below is the proposed procurement timetable. This is intended as a guide and whilst the Council does not intend to depart from the timetable it reserves the right to do so at any stage. However all tenderers will be notified in advance where there are any changes to the tender submission date, or the last date for submission of tender clarification queries. The timetable is as follows:

.

DATE STAGE

XXXXX ITT to be issued to Tenderers by the Council

XXXXXX Clarification period opens

XXXXXXX Clarification period closes

XXXXXXXXX Closing date and time for receipt by the Council of Tenderer Responses to the ITT

XXXXXXXXXX Evaluation of ITT Responses commences

XXXXXXXXXX Appointment of Provider(s) to Frameworks(s)

XXXXXXXXXX Commencement Date of Framework Agreement

9 Award Process

9.1The organisation shall not be committed to any course of action as a result of:

issuing this ITT or any invitation to participate in this procurement exercise;

an invitation to submit any response in respect of this procurement exercise;

communicating with a Tenderer or a Tenderer’s representatives or agents in respect of this procurement exercise; or

any other communication between the organisation (whether directly or by its agents or representatives) and any other party.

9.2Tenderers shall accept and acknowledge that by issuing this ITT the organisation shall not be bound to accept any Tender and reserves the right not to conclude an Agreement for some or all of the services for which Tenders are invited.

9.3This ITT does not constitute an offer and the organisation does not undertake to accept the lowest or part, or all of any Tender, even if all the requirements are met. The organisation reserves the right to abandon the tender process at any time for any reason whatsoever.

9.4All contracts let shall be in writing based on the Draft Agreement. 9.5All tenderers shall be notified in writing whether their tender submission has

been successful or unsuccessful. The written formal acceptance of a tenderers offer will obligate the organisation and the successful tenderer in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in the Agreement. The acknowledgement of receipt of any tender submission shall not constitute any actual or implied agreement between the Council and the tenderer.

9.6 Tenderers must not undertake to perform or deliver any services without prior written notification from the organisation

10 Tenderer’s Warranties

In submitting its tender, the tenderer warrants, represents and undertakes to the organisation that:

10.1 all information, representations and other matters of fact communicated (whether in writing or otherwise) to the organisation by the tenderer, its staff or agents in connection with or arising out of the tender are true, complete and accurate in all respects, both as at the date communicated and as at the date of submission of the tender;

10.2 it has made its own investigations and research and has satisfied itself in respect of all matters (whether actual or contingent) relating to the tender and that it has not submitted the tender and will not be entering into the contract (if the same be awarded to the tenderer by the organisation) in reliance upon any information, representation or assumption which may have been made by or on behalf of the organisation

10.3 it has full power and authority to enter into the contract and perform the obligations specified in the Contract and will, if requested, produce evidence of such to the organisation; and

10.4 it is of sound financial standing and has and will have sufficient working capital, skilled staff, equipment and other resources available to it to perform the obligations specified in the Contract.

11 Right to reject/disqualify

11.1 The organisation reserves the right to reject or disqualify a Tenderer where:

(a) the Tenderer fails to comply fully with the requirements of this Invitation to Tender or is guilty of a serious misrepresentation in supplying any information required in this document; or expression of interest; or Contract Questionnaire and/or

(b) the Tenderer is guilty of serious misrepresentation in relation to its Tender; expression of interest; the Contract Questionnaire and/or the Tender process; and/or

(c ) there is a change in identity, control, financial standing or other factor impacting on the selection and/or evaluation process affecting the Tenderer

- End of SECTION 1 –

SECTION 2: THE SPECIFICATION

Introduction/Background The purpose of the Agreement is to contract with a provider of commercial removal and relocation service fo organisation . The type and scale of projects is variable. Projects may include the movement of large departments with several hundred staff and associated equipment to new premises or the movement of a small number of staff within the same building. The majority of work takes place within organisation administrative borders. We favour the recycling of furniture that is surplus to the Council requirements and the disposing of surplus materials in land fill to be kept to a minimum.

Outline of the requirements

The Provider will provide a Contract / Project manager.The Contract / Project Manager will provide a project specific Health and Safetyaction plan and Risk Assessment.Safe storage should be provided during transport or for offsite storage.Insurance will be required to cover Goods in Transit, Premises and Public Liability.The Contractor should supply all resources and equipment to carry out the project.Sack trucks, trolleys, hand tools for dismantling of items, protective cover, webbing and crates for the safe transport and packaging of all items.Undertake site surveys, and provide advice, schedules and estimates on crateprovision, the size of labour force required and the number and size of vehicles thatwill be necessary.Provide proof of previous experience in this field of work.Provide reusable crates for packaging and transportation. Crates suited to the transport of files, IT equipment will be required. Transport travel distance from the base to site should be as short as possible.Start and travel times should be calculated from start on project site.Crate hire, duration of hire to be agreed for each project and should cover fromdelivery for packing, over the removal period and for an agreed period forunpacking. Supplier responsible for collection.

The following projects are typical projects that are currently scheduled to take place in the next 2 years.The actual programme of work will be the work ordered.

The Scope of Projects

Project discription : Location

Write about a project

Free text about the project describe sites and requirments

Recycling and Disposal:

We favour the recycling of furniture that is surplus to the Locations requirements, preferring that Type of furniture and equipment is allocated to overseas development and charities. Similar preferences exist with the reuse of office furniture and equipment where it is preferred that it will be used in community or charity based projects either in the UK or as part of an overseas aid scheme.Unwanted furniture should be transported from site prior to dismantling. The re-machining of timber components and the recycling of steel frames is preferable to materials going to land fill.The dumping of surplus waste materials in land fill should be kept to a minimum and carried out in a safely & responsible auditable route.

Method Statement

Tenderers are required to prepare a method statement indicating their ap-proach to key areas of work and identifying what procedures and resources it has, or will put in place to demonstrate its ability to deliver the contract.

The Method Statement will be a fundamental part of the agreement between the parties and is to be incorporated as a contractual document. For ex-ample, where the Method Statement outlines resources or timescales then these must be provided or achieved, as the case may be, or the Supplier will be in breach. For this reason, it is vital that the Method Statement is realistic and thorough but does not contain promises as to levels of service which can-not be achieved or maintained.

Please address the following:

Tenderers should use the Method Statement as an opportunity to demon-strate their skill and experience in this field.

a. how they would manager performance of their obligations under the Contract

b. staffing issues – personnel employed, qualifications and experience. How would you continue to provide the service as a result of holi-days and sickness

c. vehicles – number, age, type, specification, documentation. How you would continue to provide the service as a result of breakdown or accident, employee sickness and holidays

d. tenderers should set out how they would ensure ongoing performance of the contract in the event of the cessation for whatever reason of their depots ability to meet requirements (e.g. in the event of major fire)

e. an implementation plan of service handover at the commencement of the contract

f. state how you would meet requirements in terms of recycling and dis-posal of furniture

- End of SECTION 2 –