It is important that the procurement process supports market participants to develop high quality responses. This allows participants to best demonstrate their skills and expertise, extracts optimal benefit from the competitive process, and ultimately improves the quality of services delivered to New Zealanders. Some of the issues to consider may include:
- Clarity of the information requirements at each stage of the process.
- Appropriateness of the timeframes for each stage of the process.
- The phasing of information required during each stage.
- How procuring agencies seek and evaluate value added innovations.
- The skillsets of procuring agency staff.
- The effective use of the Interactive Tender Process (ITP), including:
- format and topic areas, including the presentation of new/unique features of the PPP at the outset of the RFP.
- the quality of discussion between the bidder and procuring agency, including how probity rules are enforced.
- timetabling of ITP sessions.
- The evaluation criteria, including the use of mathematical scoring and weightings.