Re: Supplying services to PAS - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

I've had a few questions on the process, so I'll try and spell it out more clearly. The OJEU notice on the link above is an advert, it does not contain a list of questions or anything you'd expect to find in a tender. Don't waste your time trying to unpick the notice itself - you can only get the tender by emailing tenders@lga.gov.uk and asking for the PAS framework PQQ. The PQQ contains further information about what we're trying to do and the how we've packaged up the work we'd like to buy into lots. The PQQ is free and you can decide not to take part once you've read it, so if you're at all interested I'd encourage this to be your next step. If you do decide to take it further, you'll need to allow enough time to complete and return the PQQ by 13th Jan. We've tried to keep the workload down to a minimum, but even so don't leave it until the last minute. The ITT contains lots of compulsory questions of the "Have you ever been convicted of fraud" variety, and asks about your insurances and some policies. It also contains a few questions that are designed to get you to set out how your organisational skills and capacity would be useful to a programme like PAS. Once your PQQ is approved, we go into the next phase which is much more detailed on the work itself.

Another point of clarification - there is only one PQQ. You don't need to pre-decide which lots to apply for, get the PQQ which has more information and details about how each lot is structured. Just remember, when you complete the PQQ, to clearly indicate which lots you are applying for and to answer the appropriate questions.

Richard, you don't seem to have gone a long way to encourage small business! I am a surveyor and planned to bid in case you decide to repeat this years succesful viability courses which I was involved in. But I am very discouraged that your PI insurance cover is 8 times the level requiried by the RICS and - if you stick to it - absolutely unaffordable. And as a sole trader I have never seen a situation in which I needed public liability insurance. Sometimes clients say 'don't worry, we will take a view when we get the bids'. Sometimes they actually do prove to be flexib but usually they don't. And in that event the work on the bid itself will have been wasted and this is also a disproportionate risk for a small practitioner. It would be nice if someone thought through what the real risks were that needed insuring at the outset For teaching activity, it is difficult to see what they might be.

I think this is entirely fair criticism. Speaking personally, I think that if we were to insist on these levels it would represent a waste of public money. After all, your costs become our costs. However, this is what the organisation has specified. I'd suggest as a way forward: - you set out your existing insurance arrangements (together with, if appropriate, your reasoning as to why they are sufficient for the work we require) - you set out the additional cost of compliance with our insurance levels. Perhaps easiest to do as a single price that would allow you to be insured at the specified levels for the duration of the framework. We, as buyer, then can make a choice. Are we prepared to pay the additional cost for the additional cover ? The two things I would be keen to emphasise are - you do *not* need to commit to additional insurance / cost at this stage - do not get disheartened, and continue to argue the SME corner. We will listen.

One important administrative point to note: Yesterday and today we sent out our first update and Q&A to everyone who had applied for a PQQ. If you are the registered contact for your organisation and you have not yet received an email with the subject line "PAS Framework PQQ: important information email number 1" you really should:- 1. Investigate whether the email is caught up in some kind of spam filer (and add us to a safe senders list); and/or 2. Send another email to tenders@local.gov.uk to get your address added to the list we are using to communicate with you.