West Sussex County Council
Case Study - increasing participation from local suppliers
Overview
Protégé Management Limited designs and delivers training courses that help small businesses and third sector organisations to grow by winning contracts from the Public Sector. Protégé was approached by West Sussex County Council (WSCC) to design and develop two workshops to complement activity surrounding the supporting people contract.
Protégé Management was chosen as an external supplier of this service. The independence of the training was very important to WSCC.
WSCC wanted to promote free workshops when the contract notice was published, so that SMEs and TSOs could find out more about the requirements, and fully understand the Pre Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) and Invitation to tender (ITT) processes.
Objectives
WSCC had changed its approach to this particular contract and wanted to use this opportunity to engage with local providers from the third sector.
Another objective of the training workshops was to educate potential suppliers on the procurement process, and to improve the number of compliant submissions that the council receives.
The Council also saw the workshops as an opportunity to "sell" themselves to the marketplace - to put a human face on procurement.
WSCC had also chosen to implement the Achilles e-tendering system and had chosen this contract to be the first to use this method to submit PQQ and tender responses. Because of the varying levels of IT literacy, the workshop gave the Council the opportunity to test the e-tendering system on a wide audience.
Solution
WSCC appointed Protégé Management to provide 2 half day workshops. The first a Pre Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) workshop was advertised with the contract notice which appeared in the local press and the WSCC website. The workshop took place on 16th November and attracted 40 participants representing 30 organisations.
The workshop walked the participants through the PQQ for the opportunity and gave them guidance on completing the paperwork as well as highlighting some of the common pitfalls and how to avoid them. A total of 26 completed PQQs were received by WSCC, of which 21 were compliant. Of those who attended the workshop all the submitted PQQs were compliant.
Following evaluation of the PQQs WSCC selected 14 organisation to invite to tender. These organisations were then offered to attend a second workshop on the tender process in January 2007. The success of this approach was borne out by over 40 attending the workshops, with some of the organisations selected sending between 3 and 5 staff each. There was a good mix of organisations ranging from the smaller local providers to regional and national organisations.
Of those who attended the workshop all but one submitted a tender, and all used the new e-tendering system without any issues. Following the tender submission 6 organisations were selected to make presentations to the Council. Three providers have now been selected to deliver the supporting people contract; they are Southdown Housing Association, Stonham and Sussex Oakleaf.
Kim Medhurst, Procurement Strategy Manager, at WSCC said "The workshops provided us with an excellent opportunity to engage with potential providers, the level of quality of both the PQQ and tender submissions increased as a result of the training provided by Protégé Management.
"It was a pleasure working with Kim and her team on this exciting approach to increasing suppliers being able to enter the procurement process, we would strongly recommend that other local authorities consider using a similar programme and reap the rewards of increased compliant submissions". commented Paul Cooper, Managing Director, Protégé Management Ltd.
And finally one of the successful providers said "We found the workshops really helpful. The facilitator really understood good bid writing and passed on many helpful tips and suggestions. We also had a very amusing section on presentation skills! We were made aware of the common mistakes people make which can prevent them from being shortlisted. We at Sussex Oakleaf found that the workshop was a great start to our successful bid. Of course the bonus is that we can use the learning from this on other tenders too" Tracey Faraday-Drake Chief Executive Sussex Oakleaf Housing Association
Contact details:
Karen Bladen
Protégé Management Limited
Technopole
Kingston Crescent
Portsmouth
PO2 8FA
023 9265 8353
karen@protege-management.co.uk
www.protege-management.co.uk
News
Case Study - increasing participation from local suppliers »
Less than 2% of UK businesses come up to the mark »
Trained to tender thanks to funding from Winchester City Council »
Looking to get ISO quickly? – find out more about ISO in a Box »
Protégé talks to "Growth Point" Magazine [pdf] 
»