Selling to Stroud District Council
How a business can supply goods and services to Stroud District Council.
Advertising contracts
Stroud District Council has joined the Supplying the South West Procurement Portal, this is an electronic procurement system. This allows potential suppliers to view all current contracts, receive notification of upcoming tenders and formally register their interest in opportunities to supply the participating councils.
We will publish the majority of our contract and tender opportunities on the Supplying the South West portal, alongside many other authorities in the South West region.
Registration and use of the Portal is completely free of charge, and you will be able to update your own information as required.
You can register online at www.supplyingthesouthwest.org.uk. Registering on this portal means you no longer need to send unsolicited mail or produce expensive sales literature – we will alert you when a relevant opportunity is advertised. One registration will cover all participating authorities.
Where the estimated value of a contract is expected to exceed £25,000, it is also advertised on the Governments Contracts Finder Website, along with other opportunities from the government and its agencies.
Where the estimated value of a contract is expected to exceed the relevant Public Contracts Regulations 2015 financial thresholds, currently at £213,477 (including VAT) for goods and certain services, and £5,336,937 (including VAT) for public works contracts, it is also advertised on the Find a Tender Services (FTS) website.
Information we will need from you
When you respond to a tender notice, you will normally be asked to complete a Supplier Questionnaire (SQ).
This enables us to assess an organisation's suitability for delivering a particular service, supply or works. This short-listing process saves both our time and yours in effort being unnecessarily spent on completing tender documents by companies who do not meet the selection criteria.
The information we ask for in the SQ is to verify that an organisation can be identified as a legitimate discrete trading organisation i.e. address of office, registration number and company group information has acceptable levels of economic and financial standing and promotes good practices in areas of racial equality, environmental protection and health and safety. Because longer-term partnership working is becoming increasingly important to us, it is essential that we have a full understanding of our likely partners. The areas usually assessed can be summarised as follows:
Financial information
In this section, you are asked for certain financial information relating to your company for each of the last two years. The information is used to assess the financial position of your company in relation to the size of the contract. We also require information to check you are registered (if appropriate) for tax and that you will comply with our insurance requirements.
A banker's reference and/or Dun & Bradstreet (or equivalent) report is often requested.
Sustainability
We are committed to the sustainable development of the district, a fundamental objective of which is the protection and enhancement of the environment. Please see the 2030 Strategy. We expect organisations that we deal with to have similar levels of commitment.
Equalities
We strongly support equal opportunity, equal access, and positive outcomes for all sections of the community. We strive to ensure that the standards we expect internally are supported by organisations who carry out work for the council and we assess a firm's compliance with Equality legislation in this section, you are asked to respond to questions about how you include equality in your employment and service delivery practices.
Health and safety
All organisations are required to submit a Health and Safety Policy signed by a senior person, which refers to Health and Safety legislation
Experience and technical ability
We ask about your relevant experience and technical ability to carry out the categories of work or type of service that you wish to provide. You will be asked to provide a minimum of three references. We will also normally ask further questions tailored to match the needs of the individual contract. Your responses and supporting evidence will be used to assess whether you have the required level of skills and abilities to tender in relation to other interested firms.
Best value
A well-trained and motivated workforce is vital to the provision of Best Value services. We will use our influence to ensure, so far as possible, that those who work for the authority, whether directly or indirectly employed, are adequately and fairly rewarded and trained.
Social Value
The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 introduces a statutory requirement for public authorities to take into account the "economic, social and environmental well-being of the relevant area" in its procurement activity. At Stroud District Council, we require all procurements over £75,000 to include social value metrics as a part of the scoring and evaluation process.
We use Stroud Themes, Outcomes and Measures (TOMs), a tailored version of the National TOMs Framework, to capture social value and to ensure offers can be evaluated in an open, fair and transparent way.