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Supplier's guide to selling to the council

Types of procurement process

Depending on the nature of what we need to buy, we might need to use a particular type of process to carry out the procurement. Use this page to understand the different process we use to procure the goods, works and services that we need.

The Procurement Act 2023 prescribes various procedures for carrying out procurement, all of which have slightly different benefits.

Open (one-stage) process

Any organisation can express an interest and request tender documents. This is a single stage process, where all tender documents are completed and returned at the same time.

You must return your submissions within the mandatory minimum time limit which will be stated in the tender documentation. This is currently the most commonly used procurement process.

Read the step-by-step guide

Competitive Flexible Process

WarningCompetitive Flexible Process is a new procedure that has been introduced under the Procurement Act 2023 (PA23). Whilst the process is likely to be a two-stage process for the majority of our procurements, there may be occasions where we add additional elements into the procurement process, these additional elements could be negotiations or competitive dialogue, if the requirement is complex. The processes are explained in the following detail.

A two-stage process. Organisations expressing an interest undergo an initial pre-qualification assessment, called a Procurement Specific Questionnaire.

Following the evaluation of the pre-qualification assessment, we decide on a shortlist of applicants and only those shortlisted are invited to tender. We will indicate in the tender documents what the parameters are for being included on the shortlist.

All tender submissions must be returned within the mandatory time limit which will be stated within the relevant documentation.

Mini competition

A mini competition is a process you need to carry out to place a call-off contract under a framework.

This allows the authority to refine its requirements whilst retaining the benefits offered under the framework that has been established already.