Page 122 - Procurement guidelines for smart sustainable cities - A U4SSC deliverable

Public officials and stakeholders should include:

• the time by which any interested supplier must respond if they wish to be considered;

• how the supplier should respond, for example filling in an online form or e-mailing an attachment
in a specific format;
• the level of detail they need – give a maximum word count to avoid suppliers writing too much;

• links or access to supporting information, including their requirements and evaluation criteria;
and

• links or access to their contract terms and conditions.

Adverts should be accessible to the widest range of suppliers, including small and medium-sized
enterprises. This may involve posting the advert in several places and using different venues or
events to publicize the opportunity.

Public officials and stakeholders should only restrict or remove information from the advert when
there is a legitimate reason to do so; for example, risks to intellectual property or national security.
Where this is the case public officials and stakeholders should:

• only remove information that is legitimately sensitive;

• give a clear and detailed justification for its removal;

• state for how long the information is considered sensitive: and
• disclose the information at the moment it ceases to be sensitive.

Once their opportunity has been made publicly available, public officials and stakeholders should
allow suppliers adequate time to prepare bids. The response time should reflect the nature and
complexity of the procurement.

For example, there might be one deadline for suppliers to submit questions, say 10 days after the
publication of the advert, followed by a closing date for submissions two weeks after that.

108 Procurement guidelines for smart sustainable cities | May 2023