Save time on tendering for public projects

Publication issued on RIBA member's newsletter: January 25, 2018 & on their website: https://www.architecture.com/knowledge-and-resources/knowledge-landing-page/save-time-on-tendering-for-public-projects The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) is two years old this week, but most UK architects have yet to take advantage of the time saving and efficiency gains it offers when responding to public sector tenders.In a major departure from the outgoing system, actual documentation supporting the ESPD declaration need not be submitted with the tender. It is only called up for scrutiny if the bid is successful and the tender is won. The ESPD is now a European standard that also provides a self-declaration of a practice’s eligibility to submit a bid.What’s more, it only needs to be filled in once and as long as the information remains up to date it can be re-used for other public sector tenders.The arrival of the ESPD should signal the end of the standard Pre- Qualification Questionnaire (PPQ) used by government agencies as well as other PQQs used by local public sector bodies, although in practice the UK is still in transition.