Evaluating bids and awarding a contract to a supplier

What to do once suppliers have bid for a contract.

You will require at least 3 responses from suppliers before you can evaluate and award a contract.

You are responsible for answering any questions from suppliers and must keep a log of any responses from potential suppliers.

You can find further guidance on how to evaluate a response in the Request for Quotation (RFQ) guidance pack, which can be found on the identifying and preparing quotation documents for potential suppliers page.

Awarding the chosen supplier and informing unsuccessful suppliers

Outcome letters must be sent to the supplier who you have chosen to award the contract to and those who were not successful.

Customise the award letter template and unsuccessful letter template to create your outcome letters.

Award letter template (DOC, 100KB)

Unsuccessful letter template (DOC, 200KB) 

Tell the Procurement team about the outcome

Once you have awarded the contract, you must also tell the Procurement team that the procurement process has been completed by sending them an award notification form.

This is so that the council can keep a record of all contracts.

Complete the award notification form (DOCX, 30KB) and send it to procurement.team@essex.gov.uk.