Evaluating and awarding contracts in tendering

How does HHNK assess the bids submitted by tenderers when we put a contract out to tender? And how do we ultimately award the contract to a company? We follow a number of steps to ensure that this is done carefully.

Open digital safe

Bidders must submit their tenders for a specific date and time. These tenders are stored in the digital safe ofTenderNed. After the closing date, the digital safe is opened and the evaluation process begins.

Have all formal requirements been met?

HHNK checks whether the tenders meet the formal requirements we set in the tender: has the enrolment been submitted enrolment ? Tenders (quotations) that do not meet the fundamental requirements of the specifications (non-compliant tenders) must be set aside and may not be included in the comparison with other tenders.

Checking for grounds for exclusion and suitability requirements

Based on theUniform European Tender Document (UEA), we assess whether we should exclude the tenderer on the basis of one of the grounds for exclusion. We also use this to check whether the tenderer meets the suitability requirements. The UEA must be completed in full and signed in a legally valid manner.

Testing against specified conditions and (minimum) requirements

Bids must meet all the requirements and conditions set by HHNK in the tender. We assess whether the bidder has submitted a suitable bid and whether they agree to our contract and purchasing conditions. We also determine whether the contractor applies certain regulations or special implementation conditions.

Awarding: which company will be awarded the contract?

HHNK ultimately determines who enrolment submitted the best enrolment based on the award criterion. The award criterion is thebest price-quality ratio (BPKV). Sometimes we award the contract to the lowest price, but in that case we have justified this in the tender document.

Objective assessment

The members of the assessment team do not know the price at which the enrolled was enrolled. Sometimes, they also do not know the name of the company behind an enrolment that they have to assess. This ensures that the assessment process is as objective as possible.

Only when the evaluators have agreed on the scores for the various award criteria and have established these by consensus will HHNK disclose the tender amounts (and identities) of the tenderers.

Award decision

The award decision is sent via TenderNed, so that all companies participating in a tender are informed at the same time. The winning bidder receives a letter of intent to award the contract and the other bidders receive a rejection letter. The rejection letter states:

  • to which party HHNK intends to award the contract;
  • why HHNK wishes to award the contract to this party (award decision);
  • the amount for which HHNK awards the contract;
  • the scores of the rejected bidder compared to the winning enrolment;
  • the motivation (justification) for the score given to the rejected tenderer.

Litigation

Tenderers who disagree with a proposed award decision may initiate summary proceedings before theDistrict Court of North Holland. For a national or European tendering procedure, this must be done within a period of twenty calendar days (suspensive period or standstill period) after the proposed decision. In the case of a multiple private tender procedure, there is no mandatory suspensive period. HHNK itself applies a period of five working days in this procedure, within which a rejected party can lodge an objection.

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