Commissioning is the process of planning, purchasing and monitoring services used by a local authority.
Procurement is one part of the commissioning process. It is about purchasing the service the public body has decided to buy and giving a contract to the organisation that provides the service.
For more detailed information, download the NAVCA Beginner’s Guide to Commissioning
Most contracts worth over £50,000 are procured using a two-stage process, which requires interested suppliers to pass a pre-qualification stage before they are invited to submit a tender. A pre-qualification questionnaire is used to assess a supplier’s suitability to deliver. Those that pass are invited to submit a full tender.
The Council’s guide to its tendering processes is slightly out of date, but it’s still a good guide to how tendering works in Westminster.
Download the Westminster City Council guide to tendering processes
Contracts worth less than £50,000 are procured using “invitation to quote” rather than a tendering process. The Council invites selected organisations, which must be registered on CompeteFor, to submit quotes to deliver a specific piece of work. For the smallest contracts (worth under £10,000), the Council needs at least one quote; for those worth £10,000 to £50,000, at least three quotes are needed.
Read more about the rules the Council uses to decide whether to tender or invite quotes
To register on CompeteFor, you need to have the following three policies:
If you bid for a contract, or are invited to quote, you may also need to have other policies in place. For example, you might need a child protection policy to bid for contracts involving work with children and young people.
Voluntary Action Westminster can help you write the necessary policies and procedures.
If your organisation is interested in bidding for contracts from Westminster City Council, you need to register on the CompeteFor website.
The Council advertises all its contract opportunities worth £50,000 and above on the CompeteFor website. By registering on the site, and signing up for email updates, you can get news about what contracts are becoming available in Westminster and beyond.
If your organisation is only interested in smaller contracts, it’s still important to register on the CompeteFor website. Even though the Council doesn’t advertise contracts worth less than £50,000 on CompeteFor, it uses the CompeteFor system to identify potential suppliers, and to invite them to submit a quote. If your organisation isn’t registered on CompeteFor, you won’t be on the Council’s list of potential suppliers, and you won’t have the chance of being invited to submit a quote.
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