3.29 At each stage of the procurement National Savings used pre-determined criteria and selected teams to evaluate bids:
a) After sifting responses to the advertisement in the Official Journal of European Communities, National Savings interviewed six potential bidders and evaluated them against four headline criteria: service delivery experience, organisational capability and cultural fit, financial and service capability and commitment to National Savings' objectives for the project.
b) At the Information Memorandum stage, an evaluation panel co-ordinated the process and assessed results on the basis of pre-determined evaluation criteria used by four specialist groups: Business and Contractual Strategy; Service and Technical Quality; Management Environment and Staff Acceptability, and Financial.
c) At the final stage of bidding, National Savings established a management structure for evaluation and negotiation, roles and responsibilities for each specialist group and used the pre-determined criteria set out in the Invitation to Negotiate to measure the potential of the final bids to achieve project objectives.