Competitive dialogue checklist! Below I have referenced the key points required for a Competitive Dialogue Process used in an OJEU process. The same principles can be applied in the private sector without the need for formal advertising.
Describe the needs and requirements in the contract notice.
The substantial or fundamental elements of the notice and of the descriptive document may not be modified during the award procedure
* Minimum capacity levels
* If limiting participants invited to dialogue i.e. 3 the notice must contain the objective and the non-objective criteria.
* MEAT must be used rather than lowest price
* The relative weighting of the criteria should be in a decreasing order of importance in the contract notice
* The criteria may not be changed during the dialogue
* After the selection stage the dialogue begins
* A dialogue is open with the candidates selected
* All aspects of the contract may be discussed including price/commercials
* The dialogue should be started individually with each of the participants on the basis of the ideas and solutions
* During the course of the dialogue CA may ask the participants to specify their proposals in writing, possibly in the form of progressively completed/ refined tenders
* This may involve significant investment therefore it may be an option to specify prices or payments for the dialogue
* Procedure for successive stages by applying the award criteria
* The reduction of suppliers relates the number of solutions to be discussed using award criteria should be written
* Dialogue concluded
* Final tenders are based on the solution or (solutions) of each of the participants
* Final tenders will be submitted- if through the process only one supplier is left this does not prevent the CA with moving forward (no time limits of tender response)
* Option to clarify, or fine tune, however additional information may not involve changes to basic features of the tender, variations in which are likely to distort competition have a discriminatory effect
* Final tenders are assessed on the award criteria