Section 29: Two-stage bidding

29. Two-stage bidding (1) Open advertised bidding may be held in 2 stages where— (a) it is not feasible to fully define the technical or contractual aspects of the procurement to elicit competitive bids; or (b) because of the complex nature of the goods, other services or works to be procured, the public body wishes to consider various technical or contractual solutions, and to discuss with bidders the relative merits of those variants before deciding on the final technical specifications and contractual conditions. (2) In the first stage, the bidding documents shall— (a) outline— (i) the purpose; (ii) the expected performance; (iii) the broad specifications of the equipment or works to be procured; and (iv) the qualifications required to perform the contract; and (b) call upon bidders to submit technical bids without a bid price and their comments on the proposed contract conditions. (3) The public body may engage in discussions with any bidder with a view to understanding a technical bid or to indicating changes required to make it acceptable and seeking the bidder's willingness to make such changes. (4) At the end of the first stage, the public body may— (a) reject those bids which do not, and cannot be changed to, meet the basic requirements, minimum performance, or required completion time or have any other weakness which makes the bid substantially non-responsive; or (b) modify the technical specifications, evaluation criteria, and contract conditions in order to maximise competition and articulate appropriate evaluation methodology in order to consider various options put forth by the bidders. (5) In the second stage, the public body shall invite bidders whose bids have not been rejected to submit final bids with prices to the revised bidding documents. P56 – 17 [Issue 5] Public Procurement Act