Bid writing · Compliance
Local authority frameworks, DPS routes and NHS procurement.
Getting onto the list is a different exercise to winning a contract, and since the Procurement Act 2023 and the Provider Selection Regime, the rules differ depending on who is buying.
The regimes
Which rulebook applies to your opportunity.
This matters more than most providers realise. It changes the timetable, the standstill, and what you can challenge.
Procurement Act 2023
The current regime for most local authority procurement. Assessment summaries under section 50 replace the old award letters, and the transparency requirements are materially different.
PCR 2015
Still governs procurements started before the Act commenced, and long-running frameworks. Regulation 86 and 87 standstill notices remain in circulation.
Provider Selection Regime
Health Care Services (PSR) Regulations 2023: the NHS route. Different processes, different notices, an eight working day standstill, and its own grounds for challenge.
Routes to market
Five ways onto a buyer's list.
Closed frameworks
A single competition, a fixed number of places, and no way in until it is re-tendered, often four years later. Miss it and you are locked out for the term.
These reward preparation. If a framework in your area is due for renewal, the work starts months before the notice appears, not the week it does.
Open frameworks and DPS
Dynamic purchasing systems and open frameworks admit new providers in rounds, sometimes continuously. Lower stakes per attempt, and a failed round is not fatal.
The trap is complacency: providers submit a thin application because they can reapply, then discover the ranking from that first admission follows them.
Pseudo-DPS and DPV
Local variants sitting outside the formal DPS rules, dynamic purchasing vehicles, provider lists, approved provider registers. The naming is inconsistent between authorities and the mechanics vary.
Read the admission and call-off rules carefully. Some allocate work by rotation, some by ranking, some by cost, and that determines whether a place is worth having.
NHS accreditation and AQP
Any Qualified Provider and ICB accreditation routes assess you against a standard rather than against other bidders. If you meet it, you are in.
They frequently carry conditions precedent, evidence you must supply before a longstop date or lose the award. We have seen providers win and then forfeit on exactly this.
Spot and block contracts
Individual placements or guaranteed volume outside any framework. Less procedural, but the quality questions are often harder because there is no framework filter ahead of them.
The selection stage is where bids quietly die.
Selection Questionnaires, Procurement Specific Questionnaires and PQQs are pass/fail. There are no marks for a good answer, only elimination for a bad one.
Exclusion grounds, Conditions of Participation, financial standing thresholds, insurance levels, and a chain of evidence uploads that must match the narrative exactly. A mismatch between your stated turnover and your filed accounts, or a policy dated after the submission deadline, is enough.
Nobody tells you this is why you were rejected. The letter says your submission did not meet the requirements.
- ExclusionsMandatory and discretionary grounds, group structure, connected persons
- FinancialTurnover thresholds, filed accounts consistency, ratios, parent guarantees
- InsuranceLevels against the specification, renewal dates past contract start
- PoliciesDated, signed, version-controlled, and matching what the narrative claims
- UploadsEvery attachment named as specified and actually attached
- ClarificationsPublished answers read and reflected in your response
Evidenced
Framework and NHS awards on file.
Domiciliary Care Any Qualified Provider
Two separate providers successful in the same AQP round under the Provider Selection Regime, both invited to mobilise for April service commencement.
Continuing Healthcare homecare accreditation
Approved provider status under the Provider Selection Regime, including satisfaction of the conditions precedent before the longstop date.
Children's Community Care Framework
Light touch framework award under section 50 of the Procurement Act 2023, in one of the first cohorts assessed under the new regime.
Got a tender with a deadline on it?
Send the closing date and the portal link. We'll tell you honestly whether it's worth your time, before you pay us anything.