E.2.5  Attendees

In respect of workshops or other meetings, government should consider which project team members should attend. That is, government should provide access to individuals with the ability to provide the feedback sought by bidders or considered necessary, but should otherwise be seeking to reduce the number of its representatives.

For social infrastructure it is very important to get users' feedback (e.g. head clinicians in a hospital). These personnel are generally extremely busy and therefore effort needs to go into scheduling, setting the agenda in advance and holding the workshops either on site or close to the site.

The project team should also consult the project Probity Practitioner about the extent of their attendance at the workshops/sessions. In general the attendance of the Probity Practitioner has not been required following agreement on the protocols to be used for the interactive process.  However, this should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Personnel requirements can include:

•  The same project team members attend a category of workshops with each bidder to ensure consistency.  For example, the same personnel would attend all technical workshops.  The same personnel do not necessarily attend all the workshops due to time and resource constraints, though senior project team members may choose to attend all workshops.

•  Team members are provided with protocols to ensure independence and impartiality.

•  Engage operator or user groups directly in discussions as required, as their perspective is likely to be valuable, particularly where design issues are being discussed.  It is important for the public sector to ensure messages delivered continue to be consistent with the RFP and the evaluation criteria.

•  Limit the size of the groups attending each workshop.  Meaningful discussion is more likely to occur in smaller, focused groups. Consideration should be given to staggering the workshop so that particular personnel can enter or exit the session as required to address agenda specific issues.

Before releasing the RFP documentation, which is likely to contain information on the interactive process, the public sector should also consider the following resource issues:

•  the availability of the core team that will participate in the interactive process, including any advisors.  The estimate of the availability required from team members should be flexible as the intensity of the process, such as the number of meetings, may change as the process progresses.  It should be noted that the availability required will impact on the budget required for the procurement, though it should be noted that funds invested in an effective interactive process are likely to be more than offset by avoiding subsequent re-bidding processes;

•  the availability of the team (and other potential participants such as representatives of operator or user groups) for a training workshop; and

•  the amount of time built into the procurement timetable for workshops and meetings.  Depending on the complexity of the project, more workshops and a longer tender submission period may be required.