Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation

As a member of the public and an employee of a tendering firm, under the Freedom of Information Act 2014, I wish to place a request for the following: TOPIC: This Request is in relation to the specific tender “RFT 206674 - PROJ000007245 - PAS122F - Multi Supplier Framework Agreement for the provision of Business, Management and ICT Consultancy Services” as published on https://www.etenders.gov.ie/ (https://irl.eu-supply.com/) on 05/02/2022 at 16:18 by the Office of Government Procurement. REQUEST: All documentation relating to the above Multi-Party Framework including, but not limited to, documentation on the following: • Framework Design & Qualifying Criteria – o The internal design decision to apply a limit of 20 members and 30 members in various lots, o the turnover thresholds for each lot and the overall framework o the scoring methodology design and sub-criteria scoring o the design of qualifying criteria and their application as it appears that they did not get validated, other than taking the tenderer’s word, before progressing to the next stage of the process for further assessment – Clause 3.2 Selection Criteria states… “Tenderers will either pass OR fail each of the Selection Criteria in this part 3.2. A Tenderer who fails a selection criterion will be excluded from participating in this Competition” … yet it appears that without validation these criteria were adjudged to have been passed (or not). o Documentation relating to the review of previous framework, feedback (internal and external) on the previous framework and suggestions for the new framework and the review and approval of the new Framework including standard legal review sign off for these frameworks prior to publication. • Submissions o List of all tendering entities for each lot o All tender submissions – to enable assessment of the scoring applied to them • Assessments o By Lot, all reports / minutes of meetings / detailed scoring methodology including official and incidental instruction on how discretionary and/or additional content was to be assessed and scored where it was allowed, and how scoring was to be allocated across sub sections of the tender responses when scoring was not made available to tenderers o By Lot, all documentation regarding the assessments and assessment process including points allocation by section for all sections including where sections no detailed scoring methodology was provided o By Lot, all Documentation relating to minimum qualification criteria and their assessment o By Lot, the guidance on how to assess previous experience (case studies) for minimum qualification criteria purposes prior to decision on progression to full framework assessment, when they were not being validated for quality, validity or budget with the clients who were the subject of the case studies. o By Lot, the list of tendering entities who were shortlisted post qualification criteria assessment o By lot, the details of the assessment panel and their relevant expertise / qualifications / experience of delivering/ assessing and/or buying the services and the breadth of their experience considering the broad scope of each lot o By Lot, the assessment of tenders and associated notes, including individual assessor notes and contemporaneous notes, minutes and drafts / summaries of the meetings and summaries of the tender reviews / tender feedback / tender assessment summaries o By Lot, the total number of tender applications and the scores by category for each tender? o By Lot, briefing materials / emails / letters / correspondence (internal and external) relating to the assessment process and outcomes by Lot as coordinated and facilitated by the Office for Government Procurement. o All documentation relating to Communications, meetings and engagements relating to the standstill period, standstill period extensions, the reason for those extensions, and challenges to the procurement process including but not just those made under remedies regulations and other means. o The concerns or challenges, relating to the process or outcome and the challenges raised and all internal and external communications related to these (we expect the challenger’s name to be redacted but not the content of the challenge/concerns) and all responses. All Tenderers Documents submitted save for where they have expressly noted their confidential or commercially sensitive nature should be fully accessible as clause 2.16.2 of the RFT document clearly states “….Tenderers are asked to consider if any of the information supplied by them in their Tender should not be disclosed because of its confidentiality or commercial sensitivity. If Tenderers consider that certain information is not to be disclosed because of its confidentiality or commercial sensitivity, Tenderers must, when providing such information, clearly identify the specific sections of their Tender containing such information and specify the reasons for its confidentiality or commercial sensitivity. For the avoidance of doubt Tenderers may not assert confidentiality or commercial sensitivity over the entire Tender but must clearly identify the specific section containing such information. If Tenderers do not identify information as confidential or commercially sensitive, it is liable to be released in response to a request under the above legislation without further notice to or consultation with the Tenderer……. " Therefore, I feel that, other than detailed pricing schedules, anything not marked and justified in advance as confidential or commercially sensitive must be available. Where an item has been marked commercially sensitive, then that aspect can be redacted. Any over-reaching to claim confidentiality and commercial sensitivity on an entire document should render it fully discoverable as to claim it is all confidential / commercially sensitive would be clearly inappropriate. For Pricing, it should be possible to see the minimum, maximum and the median tables as a minimum. In addition, pseudonymised pricing is relevant here as pricing is a critical factor in the scoring and selection. All documentation related to scoring methodology and decision related documentation should be fully discoverable also as they must be to justify the decision(s) made. Timeframe: Specifically, between the dates of 01/05/2021 (the approximate start of meaningful preparation work for this Framework) up to and including 29/07 2022.