As described in the Partnerships Victoria Practitioners' Guide [#19, pages 40-42], the evaluation process involves:
• Assessing bid completeness, and compliance with minimum requirements of bid process
• Assessing conformity with requirements of the project brief. The guide notes that conforming bids are evaluated before non-conforming bids-but that non-conforming bids may also be considered, particularly if no conforming bids are attractive (as described further below)
• Bid clarification, which can involve a bidder presentation and a Q&A session. The guide notes that this should not include any opportunity to change bids
• Detailed review by evaluation teams, following the pre-defined evaluation criteria. Box 3.13: Evaluation Criteria provides options and guidance for setting evaluation criteria.
• Preparation of evaluation reports, detailing the process followed and the analysis of the evaluation teams. Comprehensive reporting is important to the transparency of the process. In some cases, bidders may be invited to formally comment on a draft report, with the evaluation team required to address comments in the final version.
Partnerships Victoria Practitioners' Guide [#19, Chapter 19.2] provides tips for evaluation, and lists what should be included in an evaluation report. South Africa PPP Manual Module 5: Procurement [#219, pages 45-51] also provides detailed guidance on how to evaluate bids, as well as describing South Africa's approach to defining evaluation teams.
Box 3.13: Evaluation Criteria The selection of evaluation criteria can be key to ensuring the PPP provides value for money. Evaluation criteria should be decided in advance, and set out in the RFP documentation. Some countries specify evaluation criteria options in legislation. Evaluation criteria typically incorporate technical and financial elements. These may be evaluated separately-typically with a pass/fail technical evaluation, followed by ranking on financial criteria) or combined and weighted to rank bids (as described in Section 3.5.1: Deciding the Procurement Strategy under 'Basis for Award'). The options for specific criteria depend on the nature of the project, as described (with examples) by Kerf et al [#169, pages 118-122]-for example, whether existing assets are involved, and whether the project will be user-pays or government-pays. Many PPPs are ranked on the basis of a financial criterion, subject to passing other technical and financial requirements. The most common option for a financial evaluation criterion is the remuneration of the private sector. This could be the lowest tariff to users, or lowest cost to government (whether as a government-pays PPP, or subsidy in addition to user charges). The Least Present Value of Revenue criterion, introduced in Chile and Peru for toll roads, is another alternative, described by Engel, Fischer and Galetovic [#73]. Related criteria can include length of concession, or amount of investment. Where technical requirements have been clearly set out in the proposal, technical evaluation requires checking compliance with those requirements. As Kerf et al [#169, page 118-119] describe, in some processes bidders are asked to submit project design, business, or investment plans, which are evaluated based on multiple criteria. The authors note the drawbacks of this approach-including the possible subjectivity of assessing plans, and the likelihood of plans changing substantially over the lifetime of the concession. The following resources provide further guidance and examples on choosing evaluation criteria: • EPEC's Guide to Guidance [#83, page 23] briefly discusses the criteria that could be used for bidder selection • Guasch [#123, pages 97-105] describes the choice of award criteria, drawing on his extensive review of the factors leading to renegotiation in concession contracts in Latin America • The World Bank Toolkit for PPP in the water sector [#273, pages 171-179] describes and provides examples of evaluation criteria options for awarding a user-pays PPP contract in the water sector including technical, financial, and combined approaches Australia's National PPP Practitioners' Guide [#16, pages 62-65] describes a more holistic approach to evaluating bids. It includes quantitative and qualitative Value for Money, commercial and financial evaluation, service delivery evaluation, and project design evaluation. |