Role
Public procurement
What happens when bidders' questions force a change to the documents two days before the deadline? Not every question moves the deadline, but a material change does - and then the whole procedure is laid out again.
Intro call
Four questions we would start with
What happens when a series of bidders' questions arrives?
Questions submitted after the deadline create no duty to answer, so the problem is not there. It is that answering a question submitted in time needs a consultation with the subject-matter owner and manual publication - and if it brings a material change to the documents, the deadline has to be extended.
When are the award criteria decided?
If it is while writing the notice, under deadline pressure, the criteria are sometimes copied from a previous procedure for a different subject.
How many people does one procedure touch?
The subject-matter owner, a lawyer, the committee, the head of the entity. Each at a different moment and usually with no view of the whole.
How long does evaluating bids take, from opening to award?
If it is weeks, it is usually not because of difficult decisions but because of assembling documents.
We take over the assembling and the chasing, you keep the evaluation and the award
Preparing the documents, watching the statutory deadlines, handling questions and a first check of the bids can be taken off the desk. Examining and evaluating the bids stays with the committee, and the award with the head of the contracting authority.
- Statutory deadlines are calculated, not remembered. - Every stage has its deadline, and moving one recalculates the rest.
- Bidders' questions have a history. - A question similar to one asked in an earlier procedure arrives with the earlier answer, and a person approves the wording.
- Formal gaps are pointed out before the evaluation. - An incomplete bid is visible straight away rather than after two days of reading.
Scope
What can be taken off public procurement
Twenty-one example tasks. Each one has a human approval point. Below is a selection, and the scope we fit to the procedures you use.
Preparing a procedure
- The choice of procedure by value and subject (decision: the specialist)
- A draft of the documents on the template in force
- Checking the documents are complete before publication
- A signal about a clause carrying a risk of appeal (assessment: the specialist)
- A calendar of the statutory deadlines for the chosen procedure
Documents and the notice
- Consistency of the description of the subject across the documents
- Checking that the criteria are measurable and described
- Preparing the notice in the required format
- A register of document versions with dates
Bidders' questions
- A register of questions with the deadline for answering
- Pointing out questions asked in earlier procedures
- A draft answer (content and approval: the specialist)
- A signal about a question requiring a change to the documents
- Recalculating the deadlines after a change to the documents
Evaluating bids
- Checking the bids are formally complete
- The bids set out against the criteria
- Pointing out discrepancies between a bid and the requirements (assessment: the committee or the person running the procedure)
- A draft record (approval: the head of the contracting authority)
The contract and reporting
- Consistency of the draft contract with the procurement documents
- The dates arising from the contract
- The data for reporting on contracts awarded
A day's work
Today
- You assemble the documents from a previous procedure, correcting them by hand
- You calculate the statutory deadlines yourself at every change
- You send bidders' questions round to the subject-matter owners and wait
- You check the bids are complete by reading them one after another
- You assemble the record by hand from the evaluation sheets
- You do not know which clauses triggered appeals before
With AI assistance
- The documents are built on the template in force, with completeness checked
- The statutory deadlines are calculated and recalculated after every change
- A question similar to an earlier one arrives with the earlier answer
- Formal gaps in the bids are pointed out before the substantive evaluation
- The record has a draft, approved by the head of the contracting authority
- Clauses carrying a risk of appeal are flagged
- Procedures on time
fewer extensions of the bid deadline
questions and changes are handled faster
- The risk of appeal
fewer clauses repeating past mistakes
risky clauses are flagged
- Complete procurement documents
fewer gaps surfacing after publication
completeness is checked before the notice
- Repeatable templates
the next procedure draws on the last
the templates and the answers are in a register
We start with the deadlines and completeness, because that is where most formal problems arise.
- Step 1
A calendar of deadlines and a completeness check
The statutory deadlines calculated for the procedure, the documents checked before publication.
- Step 2
A register of questions and answers
The history of questions from earlier procedures and a draft answer.
- Step 3
An initial formal check of the bids
Completeness and the bids set out against the criteria before they are examined.
- Step 4
Records and reporting
Draft documents and reporting data. Last, because it needs the procedure to run in order.
Common questions
Questions that come up at the first meeting
How is this different from commercial purchasing?
There what counts is the outcome of a negotiation and the relationship with the supplier. Here there is usually no negotiation, and the award is decided by compliance with the procedure. Purchasing can fix a mistake with an amendment - in a public procedure a formal error can invalidate the whole thing.
Will procedures need fewer people?
The number of procedures follows from the procurement plan, not from a tool - and it is that which sets the headcount. Taking over the calculation of deadlines, the completeness checks and the handling of questions does not shrink the team; it reduces the number of procedures that have to be repeated or extended because of a formal error. That is usually more expensive than any post.
Does this fall under the AI Act?
Running procedures is not a high-risk use. What matters is that evaluating bids remains an act of the contracting authority: the summaries and the pointed-out discrepancies are material for an evaluation rather than the evaluation - and that should be described that way in the procedure's documentation.
Still have a question that is not here? Book a call
Next step
How many of your procedures last year needed the deadline extended?
We will show you what running procedures looks like when the deadlines calculate themselves and formal gaps are visible before publication.