2.14 It is common in PFI deals to choose a shortlist of bidders following the pre-qualification competition. The Service undertook a two-stage assessment process. First, written answers from each consortium to the Qualification questionnaire were assessed against criteria for a range of financial and technical issues. The second stage of the process involved interviews with each consortium. Following this stage the Service and its advisers agreed that Consul was the most integrated and impressive team and ranked it as the best of the four consortia.
2.15 The Service decided not to invite all four consortia to tender due to the costs of preparing and submitting bids and the potential weakening of the individual consortia's interest should all four be chosen. An Invitation to Negotiate was issued in December 1997 to three of the consortia and bids were received from all three in April 1998. The Service established five criteria - Technical, Facilities Management, Financial, Legal and Presentation - against which it would weight and score each of the bidders.