PROCUREMENT SERVICES

A Guide on how to sell to Braintree District Council

Braintree District Council spends approx £28 Million each year on a wide range of goods, services and works programmes.

In addition Braintree District Council also takes part in the following purchasing initiatives across Essex

Procurement Agency For Essex (PAE)

Braintree is a member of the Procurement Agency For Essex . This agency represents 14 local councils in Essex and Essex County Fire and Rescue.

Members of the Procurement Agency For Essex have all adopted BiP Solutions to provide Buyer profiles and a Procurement Portal. These portals use the Select Service to provide an on line registration of supplier interest and on-line pre-qualification. The Select Service falls into three status levels.

Select Registered- A Supplier can register their contact details, which will be displayed to buyers, with any other information being withheld until published by the supplier.

Select Certify - The supplier can complete and publish the on-line pre-qualification details required by buyers, including uploading of annual accounts, and then certify that this process is complete. This is a free of charge service.

Select Acredit - Suppliers can chose to pay a small annual fee for their pre-qualification details to be verified and checked and thereby achieve the accredit-certified status. Suppliers who already use Constructionline will automatically be given Select Acredit Status.

The Essex Procurement Hub

This is a shared service offering procurement consultancy to its members. The members are Braintree District Council, Colchester Borough Council, Castlepoint Borough Council, Epping Forest District Council, Maldon District Council, Greenfields Community Housing and Uttlesford District Council.

The Hub lets contracts for any or all of these authorities and often lets open framework agreements which can be used by any public sector body in the UK.

This represents some significant opportunities for a wide range of organisations across all sectors.

Policy

Public sector spending is subject to stringent controls and accountabilities. The Government's procurement policy is that all public procurement of goods , works and services is to be based upon value for money. In addition the European Community Treaty principals of non- discrimination, transparency, equal treatment etc apply to all public contracts. The European Community Procurement Directives set out detailed procedures and criteria for the award of public contracts above certain thresholds. 

All public sector employees must abide by a procurement code of conduct. Employees must declare their interests in existing or potential suppliers, and say if the connection is a private, social, domestic or professional one. This also applies to members (local councillors) who are also governed by a strict code of conduct.

Quotations and Tenders

For purchases up to £20,000 the Council uses a process of competitive quotations. It is usual for purchases of this value for the individual services to hold details of companies for those areas of work that they undertake.

Purchases over £20,000 and below £139,893 are subject to competitive tendering as per the Council’s local contract procedure rules and these requirements are usually advertised in Local Newspapers or relevant trade magazines.

Purchases over £139,893 are advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) and where appropriate in newspapers and trade magazines. Access to OJEU is available on line at http://www.ectenders.com/ or http://ted.europa.eu/. Prequalification documents and tenders are only sent to those companies who express an interest from the advertisement. 

Moving forward all advertisements will also appear on the supplier portal giving suppliers just the one place where they can view all opportunities regardless of the value.

During the quotation, prequalification and tender processes it is important that bidders take on board and respond to all questions described in the Council’s documentation. It has been our experience that bids fail simply due to the fact that the bidder has not understood or followed the instructions given or where incomplete or incorrect information is provided. Please check all information carefully before submission. Where uncertainty arises bidders should not hesitate to contact the Council’s procurement services team on 01376 551414

Purchase orders and payments

No company should undertake to provide any goods, services or works to the council without a valid order number. (No payment will be made by Braintree District Council without an official invoice complete with a valid order no.).

order number formats are normally nnn/nnnnnnn, nn/nnnnnnn or 0000nnnnn

If in any doubt please contact the procurement services team.

Useful contacts: Procurement services Team, Braintree District Council, Causeway House, Braintree Essex CM7 9HB - Procurement@braintree.gov.uk