How to evaluate bids in procurement

Many procurements involve a bid process, such as further competition or award with competition, where suppliers bid for a buyer’s business by submitting tenders. Tenders, also known as bids, are formal, written offers to the buyer’s request for goods or services. The buyer then evaluates the bids to choose a winner in a fair and compliant way. 

It’s important to have a well-planned and transparent bid evaluation process for your procurement. Doing so helps you reach the right decision and get good value for money.

Here is our guide on how to get it right.

How to carry out the bid evaluation process in procurement

Bid evaluation takes place after the deadline for tender submissions passes. 

Put simply, the bid evaluation process is when the buyer assesses bids to choose their preferred supplier for their contract. Under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, awards were generally made on the basis of the ‘most economically advantageous tender’. However, under the Procurement Act 2023, this has been changed to the ‘most advantageous tender’, giving buyers more flexibility to focus on criteria beyond cost, such as social value.

When evaluating, you need to take a thorough approach, treating each bid fairly and equally and assessing it against the same criteria. You also need to keep detailed records to show how you reached your decision. A poorly planned and executed process could derail your procurement and lead to expensive legal challenges. 

Here is an overview of the steps involved in a bid assessment process.

1. Choose your evaluators

Firstly, take time to choose the right evaluation team for your procurement. Small groups work better than just 1 person, bringing a balanced perspective to the scoring process. Ideally your team should have a combination of financial, technical, and purchasing expertise.

For most people, taking part in an evaluation process is a step away from their day job. You should provide training and guidance from the outset, to help ensure a successful outcome.

Start by making sure your evaluators are clear on the bid evaluation process and what your requirement is. At least one member of the evaluation team, usually the procurement lead, should be well trained on the core principles of The Public Contracts Regulations (PCR) 2015 or the Procurement Act 2023 (PA23). This depends on the regulations that apply to the procurement.

The procurement lead should also ensure compliance with your organisational policies. 

All evaluators must be aware of the importance of confidentiality, equality and conflicts of interest. This might include them:

• understanding that they should not share documentation with third parties 
• knowing how to send emails and electronic documents securely
• understanding the importance of treating bidders equally
• completing a conflict of interest form at the start of the process

You will need to be able to show that your evaluation methods were fair, for instance if you receive a Freedom of Information request.

2. Make sure you keep accurate records

Keeping a well-documented evidence trail is essential during the bid evaluation process. Not having this can make it difficult to justify why a particular bidder won. You need to keep records that show why each bidder was given a particular score, and to give a full and helpful debrief to unsuccessful bidders. 

You will also need your records to create an evaluation report at the end of the process. We talk about the evaluation report in more detail at the end of this article. 

Your record keeping needs to provide clear evidence to show:

• how the award criteria have been considered
• how the scoring methodology has been applied
• reasons for the evaluator’s decision

It is a legal requirement to keep all records for a minimum of 3 years from the date of contract award. 

For tenders under PCR2015, our eSourcing Tool enables Government Commercial Agency customers to conduct their procurements electronically and ensure an audit trail is maintained.

Tenders under PA23 are managed in much the same way through the Central Digital Platform. 

3. Allocate scores according to evaluation criteria

Scores should be allocated in accordance with your award criteria – sometimes also known as your evaluation model. 

How you score each bid usually considers 2 components: price and quality. How each of these components will be evaluated and weighted varies from tender to tender and depends on your requirements. This should be clearly stated in your tender documents. 

Buyers can decide what criteria to include in their evaluation, as long as they are:

• relevant to the contract
• specific and measurable
• proportionate to the value and complexity of the contract
• non-discriminatory and allow all suppliers to be treated equally

A copy of your criteria and scoring approach should be kept on hand for evaluators to refer to throughout the process. 

When scoring bids, it should be clear to evaluators what each score represents in order to ensure consistent application. Avoid using descriptions which are open to interpretation, such as:

• 1 = Below par
• 0 = Unacceptable

A more effective scoring document would read:

• 1 = Insufficient evidence that the contract can be fulfilled; evidence is weak and / or incomplete
• 0 = No evidence that they have the expertise or experience required to fulfil the contract

Evaluators must ensure that each tender submission is assessed against these evaluation criteria only. They should be objective and not award scores based on comparing tenders against each other.

4. Clarify bids

During the evaluation process, you might come across points in bids that are incomplete, unclear or are missing documents. In this case, you can ask for clarification.

During bid clarification, the bidder can be asked to clarify or complete the relevant information. It is not an opportunity for bidders to improve their bids and it must not provide a competitive advantage to a particular supplier. 

All bid clarification questions must be sent in writing, and the bidder must respond in writing. Make sure the evaluators are clear on your process and how to record questions and answers. There should be a single approved communication route for all correspondence with suppliers.

Finally, clarification questions and answers should always be included within the final contract to ensure they’re legally binding.

5. Moderate scores

The final stage of the bid evaluation process is score moderation. 

Once individual scoring is complete, evaluators send their scores and evaluation reports to a moderator for review. The moderator should be someone with strong facilitation skills who was not part of the original evaluation team.

The moderator will check for anything that might suggest an unfair bid evaluation process, such as:

• comments that suggest an evaluator considered matters outside the actual bid, such as past experience
• vague or incomplete score justifications
• score justifications that are significantly more detailed for some bidders than others
• inconsistencies between the awarded scores and the reasons given

Individual evaluators may come to different scoring conclusions. The purpose of the moderation process is to review these independent evaluation scores to reach an agreement. This is known as a ‘consensus score’.

The moderation process should not be closed until all evaluators and the moderator are satisfied with the scoring. 

6. Finalise the award process 

Once the moderation process is complete, the next step is to notify successful and unsuccessful bidders in writing. How exactly you do this depends on which piece of legislation the agreement falls under.

For agreements under PCR 2015

Under PCR 2015, this notice should contain required information including:

• details of the winning bidder
• the supplier’s scores and those of the winning bid
• details of why the winning bid was chosen 

For agreements under PA23

Under PA23, these notices are referred to as assessment summaries. You must provide an assessment summary to each supplier that explains why they were successful or unsuccessful. 

However, unlike under PCR 2015, you do not need to provide a comparison between successful and unsuccessful tenders. You just need to provide all unsuccessful suppliers with a copy of the information provided to the successful supplier. 

In addition, an assessment notice may not always be needed. For details on the requirements, see the available guidance on GOV.UK.

7. Wait during the standstill period

A mandatory 10 day standstill period then follows. Exactly when this starts depends on the legislation:

• for agreements under PCR 2015: when the standstill letters are sent out 
• for agreements under PA23: when the contract award notice is published

This standstill period gives unsuccessful bidders an opportunity to:

• consider feedback
• request further information
• call for a review of the decision

During the standstill period, it is critical to establish a single point of contact. Other members of the evaluation team should not engage in direct communication with any bidder. 

8. Complete an evaluation report

Finally, you should always prepare an evaluation report, which records the outcome and captures any evidence supporting your scores. This ensures that the process is properly recorded and can stand up to both internal and external scrutiny. 

Your evaluation report should include documentation of all relevant discussions, meetings and decisions. This includes emails, letters and even handwritten notes, however informal.

Find out more

With a better understanding of the bid evaluation process, you can make more confident decisions on your procurements. For your next steps:

• browse our open GCA agreements to start buying
• read more about further competition and award with competition to understand where bid evaluations come in 
• learn about the competitive flexible procedure, a new form of competitive process introduced under the Procurement Act 2023