THE CLIENT
The British Business Bank (the Bank) is a state-owned economic development bank established by the UK Government and owned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Its aims are to increase the supply of credit to small and medium enterprises and to provide business advice services to help them succeed.
THE CHALLENGE
Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is defined by the European Union as the most disadvantaged part of England. As a result, the region was awarded a £40M investment fund named the “Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Investment Fund” (CIOSIF) by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The Bank therefore needed to identify and procure a suitable Fund Manager to administer the fund on its behalf as soon as possible; and commence the delivery of loans into the Cornwall region by Q2 2018. This was important to avoid the potential risk of withdrawn ERDF funding as the date set for Brexit approached.
OUR APPROACH
The Bank invited us to provide specialist procurement advice, oversight and support services for the CIOSIF Fund Manager Procurement, to enable them to deliver a public sector (OJEU-compliant) procurement. The objective was to implement improved, and public sector procurement compliant, commercial processes to minimise the risk of any procurement challenges. In collaboration with the Bank’s Product, Procurement, Risk, Internal Audit and Legal teams, we took on, developed and managed a range of responsibilities:
- a successful procurement strategy that has led to the award of contract via a competitive public procurement (OJEU-compliant);
- engaging the client and stakeholders to ensure there are clear procurement requirements and deliverables;
- design and development of all tender documentation;
- an array of clear and comprehensive procurement deliverables which set out the Bank’s principal requirements, and agreed with the Bank’s key stakeholders;
- design, engineer and develop the tender evaluation model, incorporating key weighting requirements, compliant scoring rationale and a comprehensive set of instructions for users;
- production of key evaluation documents, tools and templates;
- organise a tender bidder information event, including the development of all presentation materials and the facilitation of bidder-client engagement at the event;
- oversight of all evaluation activities, including compliance, consensus and moderation activities;
- development of the notification letters to successful and unsuccessful tenderers;
- report and input into the Bank’s governance and assurance function to enable decision-making; and
- provide support for the development of the Bank’s ‘external audit’ file, capturing all key procurement documents, decisions and instructions.
THE OUTCOME
In delivering all the above, we had to ensure that any risk of challenge from unsuccessful bidders were minimised and managed. With our input, and following an OJEU-compliant process, the Bank appointed the CIOSIF Fund Manager on time, within budget, and without procurement challenge.