BTP Policy
BTP’s procurement methods comply with internal
force regulations, and as agreed with the British Transport Police
Authority in the Procurement
Policy, national legislation and regulations, Public
Procurement Regulations and European Union directives.
Delegated Procurement Authority (DPA)
within BTP provides authorisation to commit BTP in contract and
authorise contract variations to a specific limit. Only those roles
stated in:
- the BTPA Corporate Governance Code i.e. Chief
Constable and;
- the Two Key Approach to Expenditure i.e.
Director of Corporate Resources, Strategic Procurement
Manager, Procurement Managers, FHQ Buyer and Area Buyers have
DPA.
No other individual can commit BTP in
contract.
Within BTP, tenders received under a closed
bid process i.e. with a formal tender return date and times are
considered as formal tenders. Quotations received under an
open bid process i.e. with no formal tender return date and time
are considered as informal tenders.
To assess a supplier’s capacity to fulfil a
requirement, a supplier appraisal is undertaken which may
consistent of the following:
Company Appraisal – A
search of Companies House (or overseas equivalent) to ensure the
supplier is trading legitimately.
Financial Appraisal -
An appraisal of the supplier’s financial accounts to ensure
financial solvency and stability.
Capability Appraisal –
An appraisal of the supplier’s ongoing technical and commercial
capability to supply, including technical and managerial
capability, quality control and track record.
Within BTP, the Budget Holder is responsible
for managing all contracts within their budget area and sphere of
responsibility unless there is another person specifically named or
nominated in the contract. This includes the role in managing
the day to day relationship with suppliers.
EU Procurement and Regulations
British Transport Police (BTP) is a public
sector contracting authority and procures its supplies, services
and works in accordance with EU Procurement regulations. The
European Procurement Regulations were designed to bring about
transparency in the way that Public Sector bodies throughout the
European Union award their supplies, services and works.
Under European public procurement directives,
public sector procurement must follow transparent procedures to
ensure fair conditions of competition for all suppliers.
The public procurement threshold values (in
force from 1 January 2012 until 31 December 2013) which the
majority of contracts must be advertised in compliance with EU
requirements are:
|
Supplies
|
£173,934
|
Note: The threshold values are subject
to biannual review.
|
|
Services
|
£173,934
|
|
Works
|
£4,348,350
|
These advertisements must occur in the
Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). This
publication is freely available to anyone who might be interested
in bidding for a multitude of contracts (not just BTP
business). Any requirement that is advertised in Europe in
this fashion is then subject to certain time limits in terms of how
long the bidding process has to last and how quickly tenderers must
be notified about decisions.
The Regulations provide for certain types of contracts to be
exempt from the usual tendering requirements but these exemptions
are by exception. Normally contracts must follow one of four
distinct tendering procedures:
| Competitive Dialogue |
This procedure is used for more complex
procurements. Following the OJEU Contract Notice and a
selection process, the organisation negotiates with companies to
develop suitable solution(s) and on which chosen companies will be
invited to tender. After the invitation to tender is issued
no further negotiation is allowed, only discussion about clarifying
or fine-tuning the tender. |
| Negotiated |
The Regulations only allow for use of this procedure in
exceptional cases and the reporting requirements are very
onerous. This procedure can only be used in the following
cases:
- where the tendering authority has already advertised the
requirement under the open or restricted procedure and this process
has failed (e.g. no satisfactory bids received).
- where specifications cannot be drawn up with sufficient
precision. This will normally only apply in cases where
the organisation is requesting bids that will require a high
degree of creative input from the supplier or there is considerable
uncertainty about the deliverables.
- where the works involved are purely for Research, Experiment or
Development.
|
|
Open
|
The contract is advertised in the OJEU and anyone that indicates
an interest must be sent the Tender documents and invited to submit
their bid. This is considered to be the most transparent and fair
contracting route but can be highly resource intensive since,
depending on the nature of the contract, hundreds of bidders may
have to be invited to tender.
|
|
Restricted
|
An advertisement is placed for 'expressions of interest' whereby
potential tenderers are invited to submit details of their
organisation. The details normally required include three years of
accounts, information regarding your structure, technical ability
and capacity. Submissions are then analysed and a shortlist of the
most suitable tenderers is produced. Organisations on this
shortlist will then be invited to submit their bids in line with
the tender documents.
|
The Consolidated Directive, (2004/18/EC) introduced at the end
of January 2006 allowed the use of electronic means to issue
contract notices and also to issue and receive tenders.
BTP utilizes the MyTenders system for issuing contract notices
electronically http://www.mytenders.org
This is a very brief overview of a complex area - should further
information be required, the following links may be useful:
- Government Procurement Service has a public sector
national procurement portal called Buying Solutions.
Information of over 500,000 products and services through 600
suppliers is available on their website: http://www.buyingsolutions.gov.uk/