GLOSSARY

01

Before you bid

The decisions and arrangements that exist before a tender lands on your desk.

• Bid / no-bid

  Whether to chase an opportunity at all. Often the highest-value decision in the process, and the one made with the least structure. More on this →

• Framework agreement

  An arrangement with one or more suppliers setting terms for future contracts. Being appointed to a framework is not winning work; it is permission to compete for it.

• Call-off

  An individual contract awarded under an existing framework.

• Dynamic purchasing arrangements

  Supplier lists that stay open for new entrants rather than closing after an initial round.

• Prior information / pipeline notices

  Advance publication of what a buyer intends to procure. Worth watching, and largely ignored by most suppliers.

02

The stages

What each stage is called, and what it is actually for.

• PQQ

  Pre-qualification questionnaire. The earlier stage where a buyer checks a supplier’s suitability before inviting a tender. Largely superseded; see SQ.

• SQ

  Selection questionnaire. The standard replacement for the PQQ in UK public procurement. Covers financial standing, insurance, health and safety and past performance rather than your proposal.

• ITT

  Invitation to tender. The main event: what the buyer wants, how they will assess it, and what you must submit.

• RFP / RFQ

  Request for proposal or for quotation. More common in private-sector and international procurement. An RFQ is usually price-led; an RFP asks for an approach.

• Standstill

  The pause between a buyer announcing an award and the contract being signed, during which the decision can be challenged.

03

How you are judged

The documents that decide the score. Read these before writing anything.

• Award criteria

  What the buyer will score and how much each part is worth. The single most-skipped document in the pack.

• MEAT / MAT

  Most economically advantageous tender, or most advantageous tender. The principle that an award weighs more than price alone.

• Weighting

  How the marks split between quality, price and the rest. A 70/30 quality split is a different bid from a 30/70, and should be written differently.

• Scoring matrix

  The buyer’s definition of what earns each mark. Where it is published, it is the marking scheme for an exam you are about to sit.

• Assessment summary

  The buyer’s account of how your submission was assessed. The most useful document you will receive, and the least read.

04

What they ask you to prove

The things evaluators look for evidence of, rather than claims about.

• Social value

  The wider economic, social and environmental benefit delivered alongside the work. Weighted meaningfully in most UK public procurement, and routinely asserted rather than evidenced, which is where marks go.

• Win themes

  The handful of things you want the evaluator to remember, carried through every answer rather than stated once.

• Method statement

  How you will actually do the work. Specific, sequenced, and tied to this project rather than to how you generally work.

• Case study / project reference

  Evidence you have done something comparable. Comparability is judged by the evaluator, not by you, which is why the choice matters as much as the writing.

• Non-conformity

  Where a submission fails a stated requirement. It can cost marks or remove the bid entirely. The expensive ones are those nobody notices before submission.

• TUPE

  The regulations governing what happens to employees when a service transfers between providers. Frequently material to price, rarely to the quality response.

05

Documents you will be sent

Three you will be given, in descending order of how often they are read.

• Employer’s requirements

  Also called the specification. What the buyer wants delivered, and the document your response is actually assessed against.

• Contract particulars

  The commercial and legal terms. Read by the commercial team, ignored by the bid team, and the source of most of the obligations you will be held to.

• Schedules and appendices

  Where requirements hide. A pack of several thousand pages will have its most consequential line somewhere in here.

06

A note on the words themselves

Bid, tender, proposal and submission are used interchangeably across the industry, and the distinctions people insist on are usually local rather than real.

If a document you have been sent uses a term differently from this page, the document wins. Every time.

07

If you have just been handed one of these

You are the person most of this industry’s material is not written for. Two pages that are: for engineers and estimators, and for bid writers and managers.

The blog carries what our teams see on live bids, no more than once a fortnight.

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