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Invitation to Tender (ITT)
Instruction to Tenderers
Strategic Testing Partner
Procurement contact – John Gill
Bank of England reference – JG/454
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Contents
Terminology………………………………………………………………………………………...………………3
Purpose of this document…………………………………………………………………….………….....4
Requirement……………………………………………………………………………………..…………………5
Timetable and ITT process…………………………………………………………………………………6
Instructions for completion……………………..…………………………………………….……………9
Evaluation Criteria……………………………………………………..………………………………………11
Declaration…………………………………………………………………………………………………………14
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1.
Terminology
Bank
Means the Bank of England, or anyone acting on behalf of the Bank,
that has invited suitable Suppliers to participate in this Process.
You / Your / Supplier
Means the economic operator (as defined in the Regulations)
responding to this ITT and means the legal entity seeking participating
in this procurement exercise and who is responsible for the information
provided in response to this ITT.
Contract
The contract which the Bank intends to enter into with the winning
Supplier at the conclusion of the Process in respect of the Project
Evaluation Methodology
The methodology to be used by the Bank to assess the Suppliers’
Responses in relation to this ITT as set out in section 1.6 of this ITT.
ITT
Means the invitation to tender provided comprising the following
documents:
Instructions to Tenderers (This Document)
SOUR (including Appendices)
Pricing Schedule
Contract Terms & Conditions
ITT Response
Means the Supplier’s response to the ITT, including the questions
completed in the SOUR, the completed pricing schedule, the ITT
Declaration and any other information submitted by the Supplier in
connection with this Process.
ITT Declaration
The ITT declaration which must be completed by Suppliers in
submitting their Response to the ITT.
ITT Response Deadline
The deadline for submission of completed Responses as set out in the
ITT.
Process
The procurement process being followed for this Project.
Project
The project referred to on the front page of this document.
PQQ Response
Means the Supplier’s response to the pre-qualification questionnaire for
this Project
Regulations
The Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
Requirements
The Bank’s requirements, as set out in OJEU contract notice 2016/S
068-118799 and this ITT, including the SOUR.
Response
All information requested from the Supplier in connection with this ITT.
SOUR
Means the statement of user requirements in respect of this Project
which accompany this ITT.
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2. Purpose of this document
This ITT is being made available only to those Suppliers who have been pre-qualified by the Bank following
evaluation of their PQQ Response. Scores achieved on the PQQ Response will not carry forward to this ITT
stage.
The Bank is seeking a suitable Supplier to fulfil the Requirement set out in the SOUR (as referenced in
section 1.2 of this ITT).
This document is intended to help provide an unambiguous overview of the procurement process being
followed, the indicative timelines present for the various stages plus key instructions for participants to
comply with. Finally your attention is drawn to the ITT Declaration that is required.
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3. Requirement
The Bank of England (“the Bank”) is tendering to appoint a strategic software testing partner who will provide
manual, automated and performance testing services. It is anticipated that the supplier will provide services
based primarily on site at the Bank (Threadneedle Street, London EC2R 8AH) however services may be
required off-site on occasions which may include potential requirements to attend the Bank’s contingency site
(Debden in Essex).
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4. Timetable and ITT process
The Bank is following the restricted procedure as detailed in Regulation 28 of the Regulations. This Process
is also subject to the terms and conditions for participating in this Process as set out in this ITT.
Set out below is the proposed procurement timetable for the Invitation to Tender stage, it is intended as a
guide and, whilst the Bank does not intend to depart from the timetable, it reserves the right to do so.
Stage
Date
Activity
5th May 2017
ITT Clarification Meeting
23rd
ITT Clarification Deadline
May 2017
30th May 2017 (10:00)
ITT Response Deadline
Begin evaluation of Suppliers ITT
31st May 2017
Responses
Discretionary Stage:
ITT
Bidder Presentation meetings
Week commencing 12th June 2017
(time/dates to be confirmed)
Discretionary Stages:
Week commencing 26th June 2017
Product assessments / Site Visits
Contract Award decision.
4th July 2017
Communicated to Suppliers
Contract formation and TUPE
5th July 2017 to Contract Signature
Award
activities
7th August 2017
Intended Contract start date
Suppliers selected to participate in the ITT stage will be requested to agree a non-disclosure agreement to
enable the Bank to share its full security policies and other pertinent Bank Confidential documentation.
Suppliers are responsible for analysing and reviewing all information provided in this ITT and for forming their
own opinions, and should notify the Bank promptly of any perceived ambiguity, inconsistency or omission in
this ITT and/or any of its associated documents and/or any information provided to you as part of this
Process.
Any questions about the ITT or this Process should be submitted via the e-Tendering tool, Pro Contract.
Questions must be submitted by the ITT Clarification Deadline set out above.
The Bank reserves the right to issue any question raised by you and the response, in a suitably anonymous
form, to all Suppliers, unless you expressly notify the Bank that you require it to be kept confidential at the
time the question is raised. If the Bank considers the contents of the question not to be confidential, it will
inform you and you will have the opportunity to withdraw the question prior to the Bank responding to you
and all other Suppliers.
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Should you not provide supplementary information or clarifications to the Bank by any deadline notified to
you, you may be disqualified from the Process.
The Bank also reserves the right to validate its evaluation scores through requesting a Supplier or Suppliers
to attend or host the following:
o
o
o
bidder presentation
product assessment (this would be a practical demonstration of the solution proposed to test
functionality, user experience and ease of support)
Site Visits
All Suppliers having participated in this procurement exercise will be informed of the Bank’s decision. Those
deemed to be unsuccessful will be provided with a letter (known as a debrief letter) that will provide
comprehensive insight into the Bank’s decision and the merits of the Supplier chosen.
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5. Instructions for completion
Your ITT Response and all supporting information must be uploaded, and submitted on to the Bank eTendering tool, Pro Contract by 10:00 on 30th May 2017 (“ITT Response Deadline”).
It is the responsibility of the Supplier to ensure that their completed ITT Response and all related documents
are uploaded and submitted before the ITT Response Deadline. Responses received after the ITT Response
Deadline may be disregarded and the Bank reserves the right not to evaluate any Response received after
the ITT Response Deadline. If you have any doubt whatsoever as to the successful submission of you
response, please contact the Pro Contract helpdesk [email protected].
Suppliers should provide ITT Responses in English and as accurately and concisely as possible.
Suppliers should answer the questions in the SOUR by populating the corresponding answer box in the
SOUR. Suppliers should also clearly and completely populate the Pricing Schedule.
Failure to furnish the required information, make a satisfactory response to any question, supply
documentation referred to in responses within the specified timescale or fail to comply with any other
instructions contained in this ITT may mean that the Supplier is excluded from this Process
Failure to confirm that the Supplier is able to meet or deliver a requirement that the Bank has indicated as a
“must” in the SOUR may mean that the Supplier is excluded from this Process.
Proposals will be evaluated in accordance with the evaluation criteria set out at section 1.6 of this ITT.
Should you need to provide additional Appendices in response to the questions, these should be numbered
clearly and listed as part of your declaration.
Please provide your ITT Response to:
Named procurement officer
John Gill
Name of contracting Authority
Bank of England
Contact e-mail address
ProContract tender portal
Postal address
All responses must be uploaded to ProContract tender portal
Deadline for receipt of ITT
30th May 2017 at 10:00
(UK date and time) ITT Response
Deadline
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6. Terms and conditions for participating in this Process
No information contained in this ITT or in any communication made between the Bank and any Supplier in
connection with this ITT shall be relied upon as constituting a contract, agreement or representation that any
contract shall be offered in accordance with this ITT. The Bank reserves the right to change the basis of, or
the procedures for, the competitive tendering process or to terminate the Process at any time.
Under no circumstances shall the Bank incur any liability in respect of this ITT or any supporting
documentation nor for any loss whatsoever caused to Suppliers in relation thereto or as a result of any
termination, amendment or variation of this Process.
The information contained in this ITT and the supporting documents and in any related written or oral
communication is believed to be correct at the time of issue but the Bank will not have any liability for its
accuracy, adequacy or completeness and no warranty is given as such.
Nothing in this ITT is intended to exclude or limit the liability of the Bank in relation to fraud or in other
circumstances where the Bank’s liability may not be excluded or limited under any applicable law.
Suppliers who access this document, regardless of whether or not they respond, should treat all information
contained herein as confidential.
In addition, all further information supplied to you by the Bank, either in writing or orally, must also be treated
in confidence and not disclosed to any third party.
These restrictions shall not prohibit you from disclosing information to your professional advisers involved in
the preparation of your Response, nor shall the restrictions apply if the information is already in the public
domain.
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“FOIA”), Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (“EIR”), and public
sector transparency policies (together the “Disclosure Obligations”).
You should be aware of the Bank’s obligations and responsibilities under the Disclosure Obligations to
disclose information held by the Authority.
Information provided by you in connection with the Process, or with any contract that may be awarded as a
result of this exercise, may therefore have to be disclosed by the Bank under the Disclosure Obligations,
unless the Bank decides that one of the statutory exemptions under the FOIA or the EIR applies.
If you wish to designate information supplied as part of your Response or otherwise in connection with this
Process as confidential, you must indicate in your Response providing clear and specific detail as to the
precise elements which are considered confidential and/or commercially sensitive and why you consider an
exemption under the FOIA or EIR would apply and the time frame within which you consider an exemption
will apply.
The use of blanket protective markings of whole documents such as “commercial in confidence” will not be
sufficient. By participating in the Process you agree that the Bank should not and will not be bound by any
such markings.
In addition, marking any material as “confidential” or equivalent should not be taken to mean that the Bank
accepts any duty of confidentiality by virtue of such marking. You accept that the decision as to which
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information will be disclosed is reserved to the Bank, notwithstanding any consultation with you or any
designation of information as confidential you may have made.
You agree, by submitting your response that all information is provided to the Bank on the basis that it may
be disclosed under the Disclosure Obligations if the Bank considers that it is required to do so.
The Bank reserves the right to disclose all documents relating to this Process for the purpose of seeking
advice from third parties and where it is required to publish the documents in accordance with disclosure
requirements as required by the government’s transparency agenda and policies.
The successful Supplier shall following confirmation of contract award be required to contract with the Bank
on the Contract terms and conditions supplied as part of this Process. The Bank will not accept any material
amendments to these Contract terms & conditions. If Suppliers wish to propose any additional terms these
must be provided with their ITT Response. Any additional or amended terms proposed will be considered by
the Bank at its sole discretion.
The Bank reserves the right to amend, add to or withdraw all or any part of this ITT at any time during the
procurement exercise.
The Bank reserves the right to cancel or amend the procurement exercise at any point. The Bank is not liable
for any costs resulting from any cancellation or amendment of this procurement exercise or any decision not
to award a contract as a result of the procurement exercise.
Suppliers shall bear all their own costs and expenses incurred in the preparation and submission of their ITT
Response and the Bank will in no case be responsible or liable for those costs, regardless of the outcome in
relation to individual ITT Responses
Suppliers should notify the Bank promptly of any perceived ambiguity, inconsistency, or omission in this ITT,
any of its associated documents and/or any other documentation issued to them during the procurement
exercise.
Suppliers should adhere to the word counts specified for each response. Where responses exceed the page
limit specified, the Bank will only consider the initial pages. For example, if a five page response is submitted
for a question where the response page limit is 3 pages, only the first 3 pages of the response will be
evaluated.
Suppliers must answer all questions in the ITT without reference to general marketing or promotional
information/material. Publicity brochures will not be accepted as answers to questions.
Suppliers must be explicit and comprehensive in their ITT Response as this will be the single source of
information on which Suppliers will be scored and ranked at this ITT stage. Suppliers are advised neither to
make any assumptions about any past or current supplier relationships with the Bank nor to assume that
such prior business relationships will be taken into account in the evaluation process.
The successful Supplier may be required to procure that a parent company guarantee is provided from its
parent company. The parent company guarantee shall be in the form set out in the Contract made available
during this Process.
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7. Evaluation Criteria
Overview
Tender evaluation will be conducted against predetermined contract award criteria. The award of any
contract will be on the basis of the most “economically advantageous tender” which will consider both
quality/technical criteria as well as price.
Proposals will be evaluated in terms of value for money – derived from an assessment of commercials,
quality of service, delivery, skills, experience, resources, creativity, flexibility and adaptability.
The evaluation will be weighted as follows:
Technical Requirement
Weighting %
Implementation
7
Service Development
4
Resource Pool
15
Management of Resource Pool/Service Deployment
11
Management of on-site staff (services in flight)
11
Test tools and environments
4
Account management/Contract management/Management information
7
Productivity
11
Total
70
The Technical Requirement score and the Commercial score will be combined to give each Supplier a final
overall score.
The Bank may exclude Suppliers who scores (i) a 0 in any requirement within the Technical Requirement or
for the General Requirements; or (ii) five or more scores of 1 across any of the Technical Requirements and
General Requirements.
Technical Requirement Scoring
The maximum marks available for the Technical Requirements will be 70%, and this score will be awarded to
the Supplier who achieves the highest overall score for this section. The remaining Suppliers will receive
marks on a pro rata basis.
Technical Score =
Technical Score
x
Highest Technical score received
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70 (Max. available score)
For example, if 3 Tender Responses are received and Tenderer A’s total score is 60, Tenderer B’s is 50 and
Tenderer C’s is 40 then the calculation will be as follows:
Tenderer A Score = 60/60 x 70 = score of 70.00%
Tenderer B Score = 50/60 x 70 = score of 58.33%
Tenderer C Score = 40/60 x 70 = score of 45.67%
The score will be between 0-10: where 0 is the lowest score and 10 is the highest score achievable and will
be evaluated as follows:

Score of 10 = Excellent
Supplier demonstrates excellent technical ability and exceeds the requirement.

Score of 7 = Very Good
Supplier demonstrates very good technical ability and satisfies the requirement with several
additional benefits.

Score of 5 = Good
Supplier demonstrates good technical ability and satisfies the requirement with some
additional benefits.

Score of 3 = Acceptable
Potential provider demonstrates adequate, but no more, technical ability and satisfies the
requirement.

Score of 1 = Poor
Information complete, but does not meet the required technical ability to completely satisfy
the requirement.

Score of 0 = No Capability
Fails to provide sufficient information to meet the requirement.
Commercial Scoring
The maximum marks available for this part of the Tender will be 30% and this score (30) will be awarded to
the Tenderer who submits the lowest total cost. The remaining Tenderers will receive marks on a pro rata
basis from the lowest to the highest price. The calculation used is:
Commercial Score = Lowest Tender’s total cost
x
30 (Max. available score)
Tenderer’s total cost
For example, if 3 Tender Responses are received and Tenderer A’s total cost is £35, Tenderer B’s is £50 and
Tenderer C’s is £60 then the calculation will be as follows:
Tenderer A Score = £35/£35 x 30 = score of 30.00%
Tenderer B Score = £35/£50 x 30 = score of 21.00%
Tenderer C Score = £35/£60 x 30 = score of 17.50%
Overall Score
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The final overall score is the sum of the Technical and Commercial scores.
Overall Score =
Technical Score + Commercial Score
For example, the overall supplier scores for the examples provided in this section, the overall scores would
be as follows;
Tenderer A Overall Score = 70.00 + 30.00 = 100.00
Tenderer B Overall Score = 58.33 + 21.00 = 79.33
Tenderer C Overall Score = 45.67 + 17.50 = 63.17
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8. Declaration
I declare that to the best of my knowledge the content of my proposal in response to the ITT
are correct and fully meets all the “Must” criteria detailed within the SOUR and
accompanying evaluation criteria without the need for major configuration. I understand that
the information will be used in the selection process to assess my organisation’s suitability
to be successful in this procurement, and I am signing on behalf of......................... (Insert
name of Supplier).
I understand that the Bank may reject my submission if there is a failure to answer all
relevant questions fully or if I provide false/misleading information. I have provided a full list
of any Appendices used to provide additional information in response to questions.
I also declare that there is no conflict of interest in relation to the Bank’s requirement.
DECLARATION COMPLETED BY
8.1
Name
8.2
Role in organisation
8.3
Date
8.4
Signature
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