1.19 Competitive Dialogue is a procurement procedure introduced through the EU Public Sector Procurement Directive8 and incorporated into English law by the Public Contracts Regulations 2006, which came into force on 31 January 20069. It is considered that the Competitive Dialogue Procedure will be the relevant procurement procedure for the majority of PFI procurement.
1.20 Under the Competitive Dialogue procedure, procuring authorities must consider issues surrounding the procurement at an early stage. The notice to be placed in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU Notice) should set out the award criteria to be applied, and specify the process that the procuring authority intends to follow in the procurement (including for example whether a debt funding competition is expected to be held). There can be no changes to the basic features of tenders once submitted, with only limited clarifications, specifications, fine-tuning and additional information requests being permitted. The Competitive Dialogue procedure requires that there are no amendments made to the successful bid following selection of the preferred bidder which have the effect of modifying substantial aspects of the bid or which risk distorting competition or causing discrimination. This requirement in particular places a significant limit on the amount of negotiation and amendments that can occur post selection of preferred bidder, and thus it is vital that all important issues are considered and settled at an earlier stage of the procurement. Thus while this guidance is applicable whatever procurement procedure the project follows, the use of the Competitive Dialogue procedure is particularly complementary to the approach of early consideration of issues which is encouraged in this guidance.
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8 Directive 2004/18/EC
9 Further Information on the use of Competitive dialogue is available from the OGC website http://www.ogc.gov.uk/documents/competitive_dialogue.pdf