National Occupational Standards in
Archaeological Practice

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AB5 Co-ordinate the procurement process

AB5.4 Select suppliers

Performance Required

This will involve:

1. verifying that returned tenders are stored securely and opened on the due date in accordance with the prescribed organisational procedures and legal requirements
2. rejecting all tenders returned after the due date which have not been granted extensions
3. selecting for evaluation tenders which are estimated, costed and calculated accurately, comply with specified requirements and meet financial criteria
4. clarifying with the tenderer any discrepancies, omissions and errors in tenders selected for evaluation
5. evaluating selected tenders accurately against the agreed criteria and selecting, recommending and agreeing the tender which best meets the criteria with interested parties
6. confirming clients' and tenderers' ability to meet their obligations under the proposed form of contract
7. negotiating and agreeing variations with selected tenderer where required and involving others as appropriate
8. confirming the client's acceptance of the successful tender and informing unsuccessful tenderers and interested parties of the outcome of the selection process
9. where insufficient tenders are obtained to demonstrate adequate competition, suitably modifying and repeating the tendering process

Occupational Context

1. Type of tender:
   • single negotiated
   • open competitive
   • fixed price
   • fixed price with contingency provision
   • estimate
   • hourly/day rates
   • two stage
2. Legal requirements:
   • statutes
   • codes of practice and procedure
3. Evaluation criteria:
   • quality (including strength of project team)
   • methodology
   • cost
   • timescale
   • others specified in the tender invitation

Knowledge Requirements

You need to know and understand how to:

Tendering procedures

• Evaluate selected tenders against agreed criteria and agreeing the tender which best meets these criteria
• Ensure that security and confidentiality procedures are followed
• Select tenders for evaluation
• Communicate in an appropriate fashion with both successful and unsuccessful tenderers

You need to know about:

Tendering procedures

• Legal and statutory controls on tendering procedures
• Standard procedures for documenting and conducting main types of tender
• The archaeologist's duties and responsibilities for advising on and co-ordinating tendering arrangements

Required Skills

You should demonstrate:

• How to ensure that appropriate procedures are followed throughout the tendering process
• How to negotiate and agree variations to tenders

Evidence Required

You should provide evidence that you can select suppliers

The candidate should be questioned, based upon the documentation provided, to explore how they

• evaluated selected tenders
• agreed the tender which best meets the criteria
• confirmed the clients' and tenderers' ability to meet their obligations

Evidence Rules

• The candidate should have been involved in the procurement of works, good and services.

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Today's date: 13/3/2010
This page last updated: 27/7/2007 15:17