How to tender for business with us

Where we advertise

All contracts over £25,000 in value are advertised in the SE Shared Services e-Sourcing portal. This is the main website for all council tenders.

• SE Shared Services Esourcing page.

The largest contracts are also advertised throughout the EU:

• Tenders Electronic Daily – supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union

For more about our advertising policy see our section below on the tendering process.

How to contact us

• Enquiries
  See Contact key procurement staff by category
• Advertised contracts
  Please contact the member of staff listed in the advertisement or visit our E-procurement site.

The tendering process

Companies applying to do business with the Council must follow the appropriate procedure.

The higher the estimated value of the business opportunity, the stricter the procedure. The appropriate procedure is based on the the value of the contract:

• Tendering thresholds and pre-qualification.

Ethical Procurement and Supplier Conduct

We have developed two complementary documents that formalise the standards of ethical behaviour we expect from our suppliers and the Council.

• Orbis Ethical Procurement Statement
• Code of Conduct

Criteria for awarding contracts

We generally award tenders for contracts using a range of evaluation criteria including price and quality. This is known as the ‘most economically advantageous tender’. This allows us to take account of commercial and non-commercial considerations. We make the evaluation criteria available to suppliers so that the award process is completely transparent.

We normally award contracts to a single supplier. If the contract is available to multiple suppliers, we clearly state this in the invitation to quote or tender.

Further information

If you have any questions or need more information, please contact the procurement team.