9.2.1  Adjusting bids

Bidders are generally asked to submit bids which comply with certain service criteria and financial specifications. However, in reality, bids may include some departures from the RFP. For example, they may:

•  propose a different risk profile;

•  fail to offer some aspect of the proposed service; and/or

•  fail to meet some financial requirements, such as providing lower performance guarantee amounts.

Evaluation of such bids needs to take these deviations into account. Where possible, this should be done through 'clarification questions' to the bidder, with the bidder providing the cost impact of remedying the departure. Where this is not possible, or practicable, this may be done by estimating the additional cost to the bidder of complying with the requirements, and adding it to the bid cost. Care needs to be taken that evaluation of the PSC against the bids takes into account any departures from the output specification service requirements and risk profile to ensure a like for like comparison.

Bids may also use different assumptions about variables such as future interest and inflation rates. To the extent that changes in variables outside the bidders' control will affect the cost to government, the bids should be normalised so that they all use the same assumptions.