Conditions for a successful competition were established

2.6 The project was well marketed in advance of the competition. Pre-marketing meetings were held in New York and London in early 1999 and attended by the Project Director and the project's financial advisers, Deloitte & Touche. An advertisement was placed in the Official Journal of the European Communities in March 1999 and around 230 interested parties attended a briefing day held in London in April 1999. Several of the companies present were familiar with the PRIME deal and so had a general understanding of the issues involved. The response confirmed earlier expectations that a sufficient number of credible consortia would come forward to maintain competitive tension at each stage of the procurement.

2.7 Ten submissions were received at Pre-Qualification Questionnaire stage. The project board endorsed the selection of five consortia to go forward to Invitation to Submit an Outline Proposal stage. At this stage, the Departments considered that all the bidders were of sufficient quality, they were all backed by big institutions, and were investing heavily in the competitive process. The assessment panel recommended that three bidders go forward to the Invitation To Negotiate (ITN) stage. These were all strong consortia, which the Departments considered could deliver a value for money bid (Figure 9).