GUIDE TO HOW TO DO BUSINESS WITH KCC - Kent County Council

GUIDE TO HOW TO DO BUSINESS WITH KCC
Introduction
Kent County Council (KCC) is a very large organisation with an annual
revenue budget of £2.2bn and a capital programme of £1.2bn over 3 years.
To provide services to the people of Kent we buy nearly £900m of goods and
services from external suppliers with over 40% of this being spent with
suppliers based in Kent. This includes a substantial amount of business with
the local voluntary sector.
The purpose of this guide is to help suppliers understand how they can seek
to do business with KCC.
What we buy
PROCUREMENT: Kent County Council
(2007/08)
£ Millions
Special
Education
IT
10
33
Waste Disposal
50
Category
Equipment and
Supplies
Buses and Taxi's
Other
21
38
73
Roads and
Regeneration
capital £83M
139
Buildings
capital £117M
166
Social Care
0 100 200 300 400
£ Millions
366
896
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The graph above shows the main areas of spend for the Council.
Most of the spend areas have specialist teams who are responsible for buying
goods and services that meet their own specific requirements. Non-specific
requirements such as Temporary Staff are coordinated across the Council to
maximize the efficiency of our procurement.
We have specialist teams in the following areas:
Social Care
Tel: 01622 221989
Email: sshqcontracts@kent.gov.uk
Highways
Tel: 08458 247 800
Property – Construction and Maintenance
Email: property.enquiries@kent.gov.uk
Information Technology
Tel: 08458 247 247
Waste disposal
Tel: 08458 247 247
General Goods – stationery, furniture etc
Tel: 0870 600 5368
Email: ksales@kent.gov.uk
Energy
Tel: 01622 605483
Passenger Transport
Tel: 01622 605935
Supporting People Team
Tel: 01622 696168
For any goods and services not included in this list please contact
01622 694585 or procurement@kent.gov.uk
European Union Directives on Public Procurement
Under EU law contracts for more than £139,893 of goods and services and
more than £3,497,313 for works have to be advertised in the Official Journal
of the European Union. The advertisements have time limits and there are
detailed procedures to follow.
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KCC has no choice about following these requirements because as a local
authority, we have to abide by the EU rules that govern the letting of public
contracts. These rules and regulations are quite comprehensive and rigid and
may sometimes be quite onerous for suppliers to follow.
How we buy
KCC will use the South East Business Portal to advertise all contracts over
£50k. You can register on the portal via the email address below.
The portal can be found on:
www.businessportal.southeastiep.gov.uk
KCC Rules on Procurement
All Councils have to put in place arrangements to ensure that procurement
processes are open and fair, and meet the highest standards of probity.
The detailed procedures for how procurements are to be undertaken by KCC
are set out in “Spending the Council’s Money” which is available on the KCC
website.
The key financial limits for procurement within KCC are:
• for transactions valued at more than £8,000 but less than £50,000 at
least 3 written quotations must be sought. Faxed or emailed
quotations are acceptable.
• for transactions valued at £50,000 or more, a formal tender process
must be undertaken and at least three tenders sought.
Tendering
We tender our contracts to get the best value for money, ensure our
processes are transparent and to maximise competition.
Below is a general outline of the tender process. Not every stage will be used
on all occasions. The size, value and sensitivity of the contract being
awarded will determine the choice of the tender process used.
• Developing a business case and defining the requirement - this is about
KCC specifying what it wants to procure.
• Advertising the requirement - this will in most cases be via the South
East Business Portal and, where appropriate the Official Journal of the
European Union.
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• Expression of interest - this is a supplier’s initial response to us.
• Pre-qualification questionnaire - the PQQ looks like an application form
and is designed to give us information on whether a supplier is suitable
and can be awarded a contract, should their tender be successful.
• Evaluation of the PQQ - an initial evaluation to establish that a supplier
qualifies to receive a tender.
• Tender documents sent out – the documents will include Instructions to
tenderers, Items to be submitted with the tender, the Requirement /
Specification, Terms and Conditions of the contract and Schedule of
Prices. The documents may be sent out as hard copy or electronically.
• Award of the contract - based on evaluation against the award criteria.
We will accept:
• Written queries about your submission
• General questions about any aspect of the process.
We will not accept:
• Tenders after the closing date and time. Marked or open tenders
• Lobbying for information from elected Members or officers involved.
Frameworks
A Framework is a purchasing arrangement which facilitates buyers buying
and sellers selling. The framework agreement is a general term for
agreements with suppliers which set out the terms and conditions under which
specific purchases (call-offs) can be made throughout the term of the
agreement.
There may be controlled competition for some pieces of work.
The main areas of KCC frameworks are social care and property related
consultancy work.
KCC also uses framework arrangements created by the Office of Government
Commerce and the Central Buying Consortium.
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Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME’s)
KCC is committed to developing its relationships with local SME’s and Micro
(less than 10 employee) companies. This work is being undertaken in
conjunction with the Federation of Small Businesses.
If you are finding it difficult to do business with KCC we would like you to
contact us to see how we can develop our procurement processes to
encourage SME’s and MSE’s to apply.
Equalities & Diversity
Local authorities have legal obligations placed upon them with regard to the
monitoring of equality and diversity practices of suppliers which we regularly
monitor throughout the procurement process. With the tender documentation
you will normally receive an equality & diversity questionnaire – this is not
meant to be intrusive and for smaller companies it is likely that the policies
you have will not be extensive. We will not rule you out on the basis of the
information you provide unless it is directly relevant to the service which we
are contracting for. For social care contracts these issues are critical to the
delivery of the service and are thus integral to the tender specification and
evaluation.
Innovation
We want to encourage Kent companies to be innovative. If you have
products or services which you think could help us transform the way we
provide services to the people of Kent please contact
procurement@kent.gov.uk
Our Promise to you
We need to procure in different ways to get the best value we possibly can for
the Council Tax payer in Kent. We want to encourage suppliers to do
business with KCC and we hope that this guide will assist in doing that.
It is essential that we have a dialogue with suppliers and please do not
hesitate to contact us with general queries either on 01622 694585 or
procurement@kent.gov.uk or to the specialist teams on the contact points
given earlier.
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