Tackling the Secret Language of Procurement

January 24, 2020 – East of England, London & SE, Midlands, North East, North West, Procurement, South West

The world of procurement is full of different terms and acronyms making up its own language, which might make the process seem more daunting than it actually is.

One of the first steps to overcome when starting any new tender is understanding procurement jargon. We have put together a list of the most common terms you might see and hear to help you decipher the secret language of procurement.

Term	Definition
Framework	The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 defines a framework agreement as: “In these regulations, “framework agreement” means an agreement between one or more contracting authorities and one or more economic operators, the purpose of which is to establish the terms governing contracts to be awarded during a given period, in particular with regard to price and, where appropriate, the quantity envisaged.”In practice, a Framework is a procurement route in which suppliers have already been pre-approved (such as financial viability). This means that a one stage procurement process can be run which is called a ‘mini-competition’.
OJEU	Stands for ‘Official Journal of the European Union’ and is the online journal that is home to all public sector contracts that are worth above a certain value.
SQ	Stands for ‘Selection Questionnaire,’ and if you’re undergoing a Restricted OJEU process, this is the first stage which asks a number of mandatory eligibility questions as well as questions regarding the Bidders’ relevant experience.
ITT	Stands for ‘Invitation to Tender’ and refers to the tender documentation package during the second stage in an OJEU Restricted process.
RFT	Stands for ‘Request for Tender’ and refers to the tender documentation package for an OJEU Open process. Sometimes RFT and ITT will be used interchangeably as it essentially refers to the main tender documents (evaluation criteria and service specification).
Site Visit	The Site Visit is a great opportunity for potential Bidders to come visit your school site(s) to see your lunch service (catering), building layout and age (cleaning) or to hear out your current capability and strategy (ICT). We recommend the Site Visit to occur sometime in the second week of the tender being out to market – this allows time for Bidders to read through all the tender documentation.
Bidders Presentation	Bidders Presentation’s are a great mechanism for the School/Trust representatives (i.e. Heads, Governors) to be presented with a summary of the key components of the Bidders tender response. The School/Trust have an opportunity to ask clarification questions and understand more about the Bidder and their response.
FM	Stands for ‘Facilities Management.’ This is a broad category term which includes cleaning, catering, grounds maintenance etc.
PAT	Stands for ‘Portable appliance testing’ and is the process in which electrical appliances are routinely checked for safety. You’ll see this in Cleaning tender documents where there is a requirement that the Successful Bidder routinely PAT tests their cleaning equipment.
ABS	Stands for ‘Admitted Body Status’ and refers to the certification needed by a commercial company to take Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) staff members onboard following a TUPE process.
Data Collection	Catch-all term of collecting the necessary information for the School/Trust on your service to be able to create robust tender documents.
TUPE	TUPE is an acronym for the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006. This can be quite complex, but its intent is to protect employees if the business they work for changes hands. TUPE is applicable in most instances. For the tender process, you need accurate TUPE Workforce Data from your incumbent so Bidders can calculate a precise cost of labour for the service.
Mobilisation Kick-Off	This refers to your first meeting with the new Supplier where you can start talking about implementation details, logistics, staffing etc.
Service Contract	A service contract is required for higher value spend where there is a higher degree of risk and detail needed contractually to cover all of the terms and conditions (for example a catering or cleaning contract).
Short Form Agreement	These are used when it can take time to negotiate the terms of an actual contract so a temporary, less onerous agreement is put in place to allow the contract to commence on this basis until the actual contract can be agreed (for example a time critical contract that needs to commence as soon as possible).
Supplier Contract T&Cs	This is the same as a service contract but where the supplier’s T&Cs are used instead of standard T&Cs from a framework agreement or SBC’s standard T&Cs (for example an ICT contract where more bespoke terms are required).
Purchase Order	This is for lower value items which formalise the requirements and price and serve as a legal binding document of the goods or services ordered (for example office supplies).

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