How to design public tender award criteria

Separate supplier capability from tender quality

This guide addresses procurement under the official competitive-tender assessment guidance. Conditions of participation assess supplier capability; award criteria assess the merits of the tender, and their assessments must remain separate. For Chinese supply chains, identify the bidding organisation, proposed factory and delivery responsibilities before drafting the evaluation pack.

Award criteria must relate to the contract, be clear, measurable and specific, comply with technical specification rules and be proportionate. Start from the product specification. Replace vague requests for ‘good quality’ with defined outcomes and evidence, such as durability test results for the offered model.

Define quality evidence and whole-life cost

The guidance recommends life-cycle cost rather than initial purchase price, except for basic purchases such as single-use goods. Build a common cost schedule covering delivery, installation, operation, maintenance, consumables, replacements and disposal where relevant. Publish the assumed usage, assessment period, currency and treatment of uncertain costs.

Use the supplier quote comparison guide for matching quotation scope. For quality, specify the sample, test method and supporting documents to assess. Identify the proposed production site and connect reports to the offered product. The production inspection guide helps distinguish sample evidence from checks on bulk production.

Publish weightings and usable scoring descriptions

Where there are multiple criteria, their relative importance must be stated through weightings, ranking or another description. The assessment methodology must explain any failure that disqualifies a tender. Publish the criteria and methodology in the tender notice or provide full details in associated documents before inviting tenders.

For each criterion, publish the evidence requested, available scores and description of each score. Explain the cost calculation, how scores combine and how ties and missing evidence will be handled. The descriptions below are drafting prompts: adapt them to the actual requirement and assign your published scores.

Test the method before issuing the tender

The guidance recommends scenario-testing assessment methods and weightings, highlighting risks where price scores depend on the lowest bid. Try hypothetical responses with low purchase cost but expensive maintenance, stronger quality but higher cost, and unsupported performance claims. Check whether the resulting order matches the intended purchasing outcomes.

Have evaluators score the same trial response independently, then resolve ambiguous descriptions before publication. Check that a durability benefit is not inadvertently rewarded again through another quality criterion. During assessment, use the published methodology and relative importance; retain an evidence reference and reason beside each score.

Control refinement and keep a version record

Refinement is available only in a competitive flexible procedure, must be provided for in the tender notice or associated documents, and must occur before inviting final tenders. It develops existing criteria rather than introducing new main criteria. A refinement cannot retrospectively change whether a supplier eliminated earlier could have progressed.

The guidance identifies related sub-criteria, added detail and weighting changes within a published range as potentially permissible, subject to the other refinement requirements. It identifies adding or removing pass/fail tests as likely impermissible. Affected notices and documents must be amended and republished or provided again.

Keep the original wording, proposed revision, reason, effect on earlier selection and approved replacement together. For example, consider whether a prototype finding clarifies an existing durability criterion or creates a different purchasing priority. Cambridge China Bridge can use its own staff in China to gather factory evidence against the published brief; the contracting authority controls the criteria and assessment.