Question 12 of the PPP Green Paper Are you aware of any practices or mechanisms for evaluating tenders which have a discriminatory effect? |
Not many of the contributors are aware of discriminatory practices for evaluating tenders. Some contributors point out that if discrimination occurs, national legislation, rather than EC rules, should address such grievances.
One contributor says that complex selection criteria for evaluating tenders make it easier for contracting authorities to discriminate. Other contributors say there is a risk of discrimination if invitations to tender do not contain all the details of the award criteria or are in other respects not precise enough. Some stakeholders cite cases of evaluation practices with potential discriminatory effects where qualification criteria are used as award criteria and where evidence for quality and competence has to be given in the form of references, proofs of financial standing and experience: they say this favours established bidders.
Another contributor reports cases where evaluation criteria were set which had not been made clear in advance or where over- or underproportional weight was given to known criteria. Other issues raised in this context are amendments to technical requirements or to evaluation criteria made during the tender procedure, the evaluation of subjective award criteria by "experts" who do not know the subject well enough and ratings being given in the course of an evaluation without proper (or any) justification.
One stakeholder refers to the public sector comparator as a useful method of evaluating bids.