At Invitation to Submit Detailed Solutions, the Output Specification must communicate the outcomes expected from bids leaving bidders room to produce cost-effective solutions to the clearly specified needs and requirements of the Authority.
The Output Specification should be fine-tuned following the Outline Solution stage, taking into account any ideas generated during the process without disclosing commercially sensitive information provided by bidders during the process. All changes should be incorporated into the version of the Output Specification Schedule issued as part of the ISDS. A more worked up Output Specification should be included in the ISDS, allowing a more accurate pricing of the detailed solutions.
It is acceptable to further clarify aspects of the Output Specification following issue of the ISDS documents, taking account of views received from bidders. The overall form and approach, however, must comply with the procurement regulations in terms of fair and transparent competition.
The Authority will need to determine, as part of developing the Output Specification and ISDS, what information will be required from bidders as part of the bid submission. It is likely that such information will fall into two categories:
• Information that will be used for bid evaluation and will also become contractual (i.e. will be inserted as schedules to the Contract), e.g. Method Statements setting out bidders’ proposals for performance monitoring; and
• Information that will be used as part of bid evaluation only, e.g. process details used to determine the environmental impact (e.g. green house gas emissions) of bidders’ solution.
Whilst the Authority will have made an assessment of the treatment capacity it requires as part of its OBC submission it should leave the bidders to propose the capacity of the facility. It should be sufficient for the Authority to provide all background information to bidders and agree the profile of residual waste arising to be managed and for bidders to bid back the suggested capacity.