The Cabinet Office and Department for Education has published guidance on how to find and bid for contracts worth £10,000 or more issued by the UK Government and its agencies. Much of the advice provided can also be applied to preparing a bid to a grant-provider.
Where to find tender opportunities
A tender is in an invitation for suppliers to bid to supply a product or service.
Contracts Finder lets you search for information about contracts worth over £10,000 with the government and its agencies.
You can use Contracts Finder to:
o Search for contract opportunities in different sectors.
o Find out what’s coming up in the future.
o Look up details of previous tenders and contracts, and
o Create an account to get email updates and save your searches. You can still search and apply for contracts without an account
You can also find contracts by browsing:
o The Department for Education Portal
o UK e-tendering service, Find a Tender Service (FTS) is the online service where all UK public and utilities sector contracts over £118,000 are listed.
o Public sector websites.
o Newspapers and industry publications.
o Business intermediaries, for example, chambers of commerce and trade associations.
o Supply chain opportunities with other contractors, and
o Twitter and other social networks.
The full item on the GOV.UK website offers detailed advice on planning and writing a bid for a contract, as well as a section on how the tender process works. The item includes:
o Statistics (for example, actual performance against target for a similar contract).
o Using testimonials and case studies.
o How to direct evaluators to content within your response to make it easy for them to score it.
o How to structure your proposal, and
o What language to use and what language not to use.
