EU Procurement Procedures

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Where the value of the contract exceeds EU threshold levels the Council will ordinarily use what is known as the Restricted Procedure to tender a contract.  All contracts subject to the EU procurement procedures will be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).

This is a two-stage approach in which the Council invites interested suppliers to undergo a pre-qualification assessment before inviting them to tender.  You will be asked in the advertisement to write, email or fax the Council to express your interest and request the Supplier Questionnaire.

You must complete the questionnaire and return it within the specified timescale to be considered.  The Council will evaluate all the returned Supplier Questionnaires and create a shortlist of suppliers who it will invite to tender for a contract. The tenders are then evaluated and the contract awarded on the basis of the most economically advantageous tender to the Council.

There are two alternative procedures for letting contracts that are occasionally used by the Council, the open procedure and the competitive dialogue procedure.

Under the open tender procedure all suppliers who respond to an advertisement are invited to tender, supplied with tender documentation, and in some cases a Supplier Questionnaire.  In this procedure the information you provide in the Supplier Questionnaire will be considered together with your tender bid at the same time.

For complex contracts this permits the Council to advertise its needs, requirements and award criteria rather than a specific contract, to provide a starting point for a dialogue with contractors to assist the Council to identify the best way of meeting its needs.