12.1.1  Shortlisting Expressions of Interest

The evaluation of EOIs should lead to a shortlist of parties to be invited to continue in the process and to whom the RFP will be issued.

The evaluation process is focused on forming a view on whether the parties have the requisite capability to deliver the project. This process will usually result in some parties being advised that they will not be invited to move forward in the process. The number of parties shortlisted will vary from project to project. However, the objectives of the process should be to:

•  only shortlist parties which government genuinely believes have the capability to deliver the project - parties should not be shortlisted to make up the numbers;

•  shortlist an appropriate number of bidders to both maintain competitive tension and protect against the risk of a withdrawal while also maintaining the motivation for bidders to invest in the process by not shortlisting too many.

As discussed in Section 4.5, in most instances, a shortlist of three represents an appropriate number of parties to be invited to participate in the RFP phase.  However, this must be determined on a case-by-case basis.