AWARD Solution

AWARD Meeting the challenge of the EU Remedies Directive

What is the new Directive?

In December 2009, the EU Remedies Directive 2007 was implemented into English law. The Regulations apply when a contracting authority lets a contract for works, services or supplies which exceeds a certain financial threshold (approximately £139,000 for supplies and services contracts and £3.5 million for works contracts).

These amendments require Public Authorities:

  • to place a contract decision in suspension if a challenge is raised by an unsuccessful tenderer
  • to respond to any challenge submitted up to six months after contract award

The implications of a successful challenge have also been extended whereby a court can ultimately decide to make an awarded contract ineffective from the date of the order. So, essentially, this amendment will place any new contract at risk of challenge for up to six months from the date of award.

How QinetiQ Commerce Decisions can help

Through its extensive experience in working with procurement authorities and tenderers, and through the development of its internationally renowned web-based decision application AWARD, QinetiQ Commerce Decisions is well placed to provide well-informed and practical support to procuring authorities.

Strategy

QinetiQ Commerce Decisions professional services support its customers in establishing decision-making strategies that are clearly focussed on delivering the project objectives, but are designed in such a way to enable clear understanding from all stakeholders on how it will operate and be used to achieve the end decision. 

Major projects are clearly complex in many respects, and teams are often reluctant to expose their decision-making approaches to mitigate the risk of being 'boxed in' by a process that may not suit their needs once formal tenders have been evaluated.

By making use of an external agency, a procuring authority is more likely to produce an effective decision strategy that carries low risk as the external agency will bring all the issues together and enable a balanced solution to be delivered.

Assessment Scheme

There are examples of procurements which demonstrate that open and fair assessment schemes are not always applied.  This presents a golden opportunity for challenge – and has done so on numerous occasions. QinetiQ Commerce Decisions Structured Criteria Development (SCD) method enables teams to establish an assessment scheme that can be shared with all stakeholders; is fundamentally resource efficient and is wholly focussed on ensuring project success.

Assessment Logistics - AWARD

Even if a coherent and open strategy, supported by an effective assessment scheme, has been established, it must be delivered coherently throughout the procurement process.

QinetiQ Commerce Decisions' AWARD software solution enables this by presenting the scheme to assessors via a web-enabled interface, facilitating and controlling access to documentation and maintaining live reporting underpinned by an ongoing audit trail. 

AWARD has been used throughout the public and private procurement community over many years to deliver over £50Bn of contract decisions, and continues to be enhanced and maintained to ensure all the latest procurement implications and customer needs are supported. 

AWARD enables customers to have immediate access to assessments and documentation in order to generate live reports on progress and, most importantly, results.  One of AWARD's key strengths is its ability to generate instantaneous debrief reports, saving project team time and further administrative effort. This functionality will be key in ensuring an effective remedies response.

The AWARD software has been specifically designed to support the procurement process and so comes with many other features, including clarification management, offline assessment solutions and comprehensive document management capabilities.

Meeting the challenges of the EU Remedies Directive - read our white paper here