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"Will Parsons and Mark Allen provided really useful input to our Best Value Review of Procurement and helped us achieve a much better result with more substantial savings identified through improved procurement practices"

Francis Murphy
Best Value Officer
Southend-on-Sea Borough Council

Five Characteristics of Outstanding Tender Documents

Tender documents are generally written by purchasers for purchasers. It is rare to see them written specifically to attract the best suppliers. Recent tender documents I've seen, especially from public sector organisations, do the opposite. It's as though they are trying their hardest to repel, not attract the best, and to reinforce stereotypes, rather than counter harmful preconceived notions.

Use these five characteristics to write outstanding tender documents that attract the best suppliers and the best deals.

Appearance: Think of publishing your tender documents as an interview. The recipient of your documents is the interviewer and you are the interviewee. The appearance of your tender documents will influence potential suppliers, either positively or negatively. Appearance should support your current or desired reputation and reinforce your brand or image. For example it would pay public sector organisations to write tender documents that do not appear cluttered and bureaucratic.

Easy to read and understand: Clarity should be your aim, and the test for this is that a potential supplier can understand everything in your document when they read it for the first time. Use an easy to read font (aerial 12pt, 1.5 line spacing), include a hierarchy of descriptive headings (in bold), order your content to attract potential suppliers, keep sentences short, write in plain English with limited jargon (explain it if you use it), use punctuation and good grammar, and make it interesting to read.

What's in it for me? If your aim is to influence the best suppliers to tender the best deals then you must, you must, you must, explain why they should spend time reading your documents and writing a tender? You can do this by inference, as much by what you don't say as what you do. I'm a supplier and what I look for is the balance of risk and reward, "What risks do I have to take and what will be my reward for taking these risks?"

Purpose: For each document explain:

• Why you have written it
• Its purpose
• Why they (potential supplier) have received it
• What you are using it to do
• Its relationship with other documents

Clean copy: It is inexcusable to publish tender documents that include comments and changes used when writing and editing. Whilst the impact depends on the comments or changes you leave in, it's almost always negative. For example editing comments were left in documents for a multi-million pound tender. It took a potential supplier to point this out, the purchaser apologised. Avoid being embarrassed; always do a pre-publication check using a checklist specific to each document.