Our tender process

Standard Selection Questionnaire

A Standard Selection Questionnaire (SSQ) is a document you have to fill in at the beginning of the tendering process. The SSQ makes sure only suppliers who meet our minimum requirements are invited to a tender.

You may not need to fill in the questionnaire for every opportunity

The SSQ document

The SSQ document will give you:

  • an overview of the contract, including contract length and value
  • an explanation on how the questionnaire will be evaluated
  • the companies we will be inviting to the next stage, which is the Invitation to Tender (ITT)
  • the deadline by which you must return the questionnaire

Filling in the SSQ

To fill in the SSQ, you must answer questions about:

  • your business or organisation
  • previous contracts and experience
  • relevant qualifications and accreditations
  • financial information and accounts
  • health and safety policies
  • equality policies
  • insurance levels

We mark all the SSQs against preset scoring to get a shortlist of suppliers to invite to tender.

We also give feedback on scores to unsuccessful candidates.