Tender specifications

8.4.Procedure for evaluating tenderers and tenders

Tenderers and their tenders will be evaluated in stages as follows:

1. 
   exclusion of tenderers in the cases listed in point 8.4.1 below;
   
2. 
   selection of tenderers on the basis of the selection criteria listed in point 8.4.2 below;
   
3. 
   technical and financial evaluation of the tenders on the basis of the award procedure and criteria described in point 8.4.3 below;
   
4. 
   the award of the contract.
   

NB: Tenders must meet the requirements of each stage in order to be admitted to the next stage of the evaluation procedure.

8.4.1.Exclusion

Tenderers are excluded from participation in this contract if:

1. 
   they are bankrupt or being wound up, are having their affairs administered by the courts, have entered into an arrangement with creditors, have suspended business activities, are the subject of proceedings concerning those matters, or are in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations;
   
2. 
   they have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a judgment which has the force of res judicata;
   
3. 
   they have been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting authority can justify;
   
4. 
   they have not fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or the payment of taxes in accordance with the legal provisions of the country in which they are established or with those of the country of the contracting authority or those of the country where the contract is to be performed;
   
5. 
   they have been the subject of a judgment which has the force of res judicata for fraud, corruption, involvement in a criminal organisation or any other illegal activity detrimental to the Communities' financial interests;
   
6. 
   following another procurement procedure or grant award procedure financed by the Community budget, they have been declared to be in serious breach of contract for failure to comply with their contractual obligations.
   

Tenderers are also excluded from the award procedure if they:

7. 
   are subject to a conflict of interests;
   
8. 
   have been guilty of misrepresentation in supplying the information required as a condition of participation in the contract procedure or have failed to supply this information.
   

NB: Tenderers must enclose a declaration on their honour stating that none of the above situations apply and a declaration stating that they are not subject to any conflicts of interest (see model declaration form in Annex 5). The successful tenderer will be asked to provide evidence that none of the above situations apply. If this evidence is not provided to the Commission within the two weeks following the request, the Commission reserves the right to exclude the tenderer in question and award the contract to the next tenderer on the list. The following will be admitted as evidence:

- for points (1), (2) or (5) above, an original of an extract from the 'judicial record' or, failing this, of an equivalent document issued recently by a competent judicial or administrative authority in the country of origin or provenance showing that these requirements have been met.

- for point (4) above, the original of a recent certificate issued by the competent authority of the State concerned.

Where the document or certificate referred to above is not issued in the country concerned and for the other cases of exclusion referred to in points (3) and (6) above, it may be replaced by a sworn or, failing that, a solemn statement made by the interested party before a judicial or administrative authority, a notary or a qualified professional body in his country of origin or provenance.

8.4.2.Selection

The procedure for the selection of tenderers is intended to assess their economic, financial, technical and professional capacity.

To this end, all tenders submitted must include the following information:

1. 
   full name of the organisation, legal status, VAT status, address, telephone number, fax number and functional e-mail address, person authorised to sign on behalf of the organisation, bank details and address; The information sheet to be filled in by the tenderer, can be downloaded at:
   

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/contracts_grants/info_contracts/legal_entities/legal_entities_en.cfm

1. 
   proof of enrolment in the relevant professional or trade register, as required in the country in which the tenderer is established;
   
2. 
   list of the main services provided over the last three years in relation to the subject of the tender (financial, accounting and IT training), stating the amount, the date and the recipients, whether public or private, of the services provided:
   

• 
  if supplied to contracting authorities, evidence must be provided in the form of certificates issued or countersigned by the competent authority;
  
• 
  if supplied to private purchasers, provision of service must be certified by the purchaser, or failing this, simply declared by the tenderer to have been provided; Tenderers must also provide evidence of a minimum of 800 days worked and four training actions in the last three years.
  

4. 
   educational and professional qualifications of the trainers and of the project leader responsible for providing the services.
   

Trainers will be proposed on the basis of their professional experience and their proven track record. The trainers proposed must provide evidence of at least three years' training experience in the specific areas concerned and of a thorough command of English and/or French.

For the "trainer" profiles, the tenderer must provide at least 10 candidates who meet all the minimum requirements set out in Annex 3.1 to the specifications.

For the "project leader" profile, the tenderer must provide at least one person who meets all the minimum requirements set out in Annex 3.2 to the specifications.

Detailed CVs must be provided in all cases, using the model CV in Annex 4 to the specifications.

5. 
   a series of documents demonstrating the contractor's expertise in the following specific areas:
   

- accounting knowledge: advantages and shortcomings of the accrual accounting system in the public sector (maximum 3 pages)

- knowledge of European financial regulations: a summary of the key points (maximum 5 pages)

- IT knowledge: description / analysis (with advantages and shortcomings) of an accounting or financial software package (maximum 5 pages)

the number of pages specified in each case is the maximum permitted. Documents exceeding these limits will only be evaluated up to the maximum numbers of pages indicated above.

6. 
   identification of the part of the contract which the service provider may intend to award to subcontractors; in this case, contractors should give details of the organisations to which they intend to sub-contract work and the quality controls they intend to implement with the sub-contractors.
   
7. 
   balance sheets or extracts from balance sheets for at least the last two years for which accounts have been closed, where publication of the balance sheet is required under the company law of the country in which the economic operator is established;
   
8. 
   a statement of overall turnover and turnover in respect of the services to which the contract relates for the previous three financial years. Please note that to be selected, candidates must provide evidence that their minimum annual turnover specifically in respect of training delivery and design is at least €2 800 000.
   

The criteria set out in points (2) to (6) above are intended to evaluate the tenderer's technical capacity. The evaluation committee will carry out a qualitative and comparative evaluation of all the documents submitted. If, on the basis of this evaluation, the tenderer is judged to lack the technical capacity to implement the contract satisfactorily, his tender will be rejected.

The criteria set out in points (7) and (8) above are intended to evaluate the tenderer's financial capacity. A financial and/or comparative evaluation will be made of all the information provided. If, on the basis of this evaluation, the tenderer is judged to lack the financial capacity to implement the contract satisfactorily, his tender will be rejected.

8.4.3.Technical and financial evaluation of the tenders

8.4.3.1.Technical evaluation

The quality of the tender will be awarded points out of 100.

Tenders will be evaluated on the basis of the following award criteria:

1. 
   technical quality of the tender in respect of the subject matter, the objective to be attained and the aspects to be taken into account (50 points). Tenderers are also asked to present their general financial computer training concept and their specific vision of the use of e-learning to teach application functions.
   
2. 
   reliability and efficiency of the tools, procedures and quality plan proposed to ensure and verify the quality and monitoring of the services rendered (30 points). Tenderers should pay particular attention to the following: the proposed qualitative evaluation procedures for both trainers and courses, approach for ensuring maximum effectiveness in view of the various target audiences, feedback procedures for improving the courses, methods of training trainers and new trainers, procedures for identifying and recruiting new trainers.
   
3. 
   Proposed methodology for the organisation and provision of the services, including the organisation of relations with the competent Commission services (20 points). Tenderers should pay particular attention to the following: organisation of the team and types of backup proposed, organisation proposed for responding to particular needs, in particular those of the agencies and other institutions, procedures for acquiring and maintaining the necessary expertise, methods for updating course materials, proposed approach for updating the user documentation, competences and possible approaches to be taken in the area of tele-training or e-learning.
   

No points will be awarded if satisfactory information is not provided on these matters in the tender.

The numbers of points in brackets indicate the maximum score that can be attributed to each individual criterion.

Tenders which do not obtain at least 50% of the maximum score for each award criterion and at least 66% of the overall score for all the criteria will not be admitted to the next stage of the evaluation procedure.

8.4.3.2.Financial evaluation

The value of the tender taken into account in order to determine the financially most advantageous tender will be the total price of the evaluation scenario specified in Annex 2.

This evaluation scenario is based on unit prices and takes into account an annual estimated workload which is purely indicative.

Tenderers' attention is drawn to the fact that the sole objective of each evaluation scenario is to provide a fair, non-discriminatory basis for comparing the financial bids. They can in no case be considered to represent a commitment on the part of the Commission to make orders for the services and quantities indicated. They can therefore give rise to no expectation or legitimate right on the part of the contractor.

The financial value of the tenders that pass the quality evaluation will be determined by calculating the price index as follows:

Cost of the lowest offer (according to the scenario referred to above) / Cost of the offer being evaluated (according to the scenario referred to above) x 100.

8.4.4. Award

The contract shall be awarded to the tender offering the best quality/price ratio, with a 2/3 - 1/3 (two-thirds – one-third) weighting between technical quality and financial value.

The weighting is thus obtained by multiplying:

• 
  the result of the technical evaluation (number of points / see point 8.4.3.1) by 2/3 (two-thirds)
  
• 
  the result of the financial evaluation (price index / see point 8.4.3.2) by 1/3 (one-third)
  

The two results will be added together and the contract will be awarded to the tender obtaining the highest score at the end of this process.

8.5.Submission of tenders

Please note that each tender must cover all the tasks that are the subject of this invitation to tender. Bidding for only some of the tasks is not allowed and will lead to the exclusion of the tender.

In particular, in the description of tasks, tenderers must follow the structure given in point 3.

Tenders must:

1. 
   include all the information, documents and certificates required in these specifications to permit verification of possible grounds for exclusion (see point 8.4.1), analysis of tenderers' capacity on the basis of the selection criteria (see point 8.4.2) and evaluation of the tenders on the basis of the award criteria (see point 8.4.3);
   
2. 
   include all information on prices, in accordance with point 8.3 below.
   

In particular, for the financial offers tenderers must use the form provided in Annex 2.

NB: The form must be completed in full. Any incomplete bid will be excluded from the evaluation procedure.

3. 
   include the Quality Plan they propose to implement in performing the services that are the subject of the tender.
   

Tenderers must specify in their proposed Quality Plan how they intend to control and ensure high quality and effective monitoring of the services and works they may be required to supply to the Commission throughout the period of execution of the contract.

The proposed Quality Plan will specify, among other things:

• 
  the various procedures the tenderer intends to implement and the indicators that will be used to ensure the quality and monitoring of the services rendered;
  
• 
  management and training policy, in particular in relation to the procedures for:
  

• 
  selecting the trainers and project leader;
  
• 
  keeping trainers and the project leader informed about the mission and enabling them to acquire and/or update the necessary general and technical knowledge;
  
• 
  ensuring effective supervision and communication within the training team;
  
• 
  ensuring an appropriate hand-over of knowledge in the event of changes of trainers or project leader.
  

• 
  the procedures the tenderer intends to use to gather and process indicators of performance and client satisfaction and any complaints received;
  
• 
  quality control and assurance / management of complaints;
  
• 
  the procedure for updating and adapting changes to the Quality Plan, bearing in mind that any such updating and adaptation must have the Commission's prior approval.
  

All expenses incurred in producing and implementing the Quality Plan will be borne in full by the contractor;

4. 
   clearly designate the project leader. In particular, in the event of a contract being awarded, the project leader will be the Commission's contact point, the sole person to whom it will address any requests. The project leader must attend the follow-up meetings. The project leader must propose answers and solutions to the Commission regarding both the subject of the contract and organisational or administrative matters (including problems related to invoicing and payment), and must implement them once the Commission has approved them.
   
5. 
   take account of the fact that the work done under the framework contract by the service provider for the Commission departments must as far as possible be re-used for other departments of the Commission, the agencies or the other institutions in order to achieve economies of scale.
   

Variants are not permitted.

Expenses incurred in respect of the preparation and presentation of tenders are non-refundable.

Fulfilment of the conditions of the call for tenders imposes no obligation on the Commission to award the contract.

Initiation of a tendering procedure imposes no obligation on the Commission to award the contract.

The Commission shall not be liable for any compensation with respect to tenderers whose tenders have not been accepted. Nor will they be so liable if it decides not to award the contract.

All the documents submitted by tenderers become the property of the Commission. Such documents will be considered confidential, as set out in Article I.9 of the framework contract.

ANNEXES: List of documents

1. Draft framework contract and annexes

2. Financial offer and financial evaluation scenario

3. Description of the minimum requirements for the staff proposed by tenderers to perform the tasks covered by the contracts

3.1. Trainers

3.2. Project leader

4. Model CV

5. Declaration concerning the absence of conflicts of interest (this document must be included in the tender)

6. Information on the financial systems

7. Information on existing training

8. Check-list of documents to be provided by tenderers

ANNEX 1

DRAFT FRAMEWORK SERVICE CONTRACT

Draft framework contract and annexes:

Annex I: (a) General conditions

(b) Model Specific Contract

Annex II: Tender specifications

Annex III: Contractor's tender

Annex IV: List of associated agencies and contacts

Annex V: List of other associated institutions and contacts

Annex VI: Mission expenses for courses delivered outside Belgium or Luxembourg