Tendering to provide goods and services
We purchase a wide variety of goods and services - from small one-off purchases to large tendered contracts. A wide variety of organisations, from sole-traders to large multi-national companies, supply goods and services to us.
We advertise opportunities to supply goods and services to us on our tendering portal, and where relevant on the government's contract finder and EU OJEU portal Tenders Electronic Daily (TED).
You can register for free for all these systems and they will notify of relevant opportunities. You can also use the systems to respond electronically to all opportunities.
The way we procure is set out in our contract standing orders, which are part of our constitution. In general:
- For smaller value contracts, we will normally get a small number of quotes and award the contract to the lowest cost option.
- For larger contracts we will request tenders, and provide a comprehensive tender pack that will include a specification of our requirements and a clear set of assessment criteria.
- For very large value contracts we will follow a very formal and, where appropriate, a predefined EU process.
It is unusual for tenders to be awarded on the basis of price alone. We normally include a quality element in our assessment criteria. As such it's important suppliers respond fully to all questions in the tender pack. If there is anything in the documentation is unclear, suppliers can request clarification. This can be done using the contact details and key dates are provided in the tender pack.
We have produced this document Selling to Lichfield District Council – a guide for suppliers and contractors to give an insight into our processes and ways of procuring and to answer many questions that we are asked by new potential partners.
Read our procurement strategy for further information.