PRACTICALITIES: The cover letter, signed by the person/s (name and position) that is/are authorised to sign the contract in case of contract award must be provided only by a leader of the consortium?

Yes, provided that the consortium leader is the person authorised to sign the contract in case of contract award.

Last updated
20/08/2015

PRACTICALITIES: The exclusion criteria declaration requested in point 3.1 and standard template found in Annex C must be submitted by all consortium members and by all subcontractors?

Yes, the exclusion criteria declaration must be signed by all consortium members. It must also be signed by each subcontractor undertaking more than 10% of the work by value or when total subcontracting is above 40% of the work by value, independently of the individual Subcontractor’s contribution to the work by value.

Last updated
20/08/2015

PRACTICALITIES: The selection criteria state that tenderers must submit documentary evidence (or statements, where required) of their economic, financial, technical and professional capacity to perform this contract. What is the proof of economic and financial capacity? Is it Statement in Questionnaire 2 of Annex G – signed and provided by all consortium members, or there is some additional info needed as well?

Yes. As per point 3.2.1 of the Tender Specifications, the tenderers must prove their economic and financial capacity by submitting a signed Statement (“Please fill-in and sign your Statement in Questionnaire 2 of Annex G”) for the last three financial years concerning the type of services similar in nature to those making the subject of that call for tenders.

In case of a consortium (grouping) or subcontracting each member of the consortium and all sub-contractors must provide the required statement for the economic and financial capacity, but the assessment of whether the minimum requirement is met will bear on the consortium as a whole or the tenderer together with his subcontractors.”

In case of a tender submitted by a consortium, there is no other information required.

Last updated
20/08/2015

PRACTICALITIES: The documents for a subcontractor should be sorted after the contractor’s documents or handed in separately. Could you kindly specify the sequence?

It is up to the tenderer to organise his proposal in the way he considers most suitable, but for reasons of clarity, the requested documentation should be grouped by entity concerned (tenderer, sub-contractor 1, sub-contractor 2 ... or consortium leader, consortium member 1, consortium member 2, etc.). The tender should in any case be clearly presented by the tenderer and in compliance with the requirements of the tender specifications.

Last updated
20/08/2015

PRACTICALITIES: Power of Attorney (Model 1 or 2), as required in point 4.1 (if applicable) and found in Annex I. Question: The Model indicates many signatories at one document, but we would think each partner provides a separate letter? There won’t be one letter circulated among the partners for each one to sign it?

Yes, there should be one letter circulated among the partners since each consortium member must sign on the same letter. Scanned signatures from the consortium members are accepted on that letter, but the consortium leader must provide his original signature on the document.

Last updated
15/09/2015

PRACTICALITIES: Legal Entity Form must be provided by all consortium members?

Yes, all consortium members must provide a signed Legal Entity Form and required annexes. 

Last updated
15/09/2015

PRACTICALITIES: Financial Identification Form as found in Annex E must be provided by the leader of the consortium and not by the consortium members or subcontractors?

Yes, the Financial Identification Form must be filled in and signed by the consortium leader and not by the consortium members or subcontractors.

Last updated
15/09/2015

PRACTICALITIES: In Tendering Specifications, section 3.1, first paragraph, is stated that the self-declaration of Annex C is requested. It is our understanding that it is enough only the self-declaration to be included to the tender documentation and the corresponding proof documents to be available upon request and / or in case of contract award. Could you please confirm?

In point 3.1 of the tender dossier it is indicated that “....In case of recommendation for contract award, point j) of Annex C will apply”. Therefore your understanding is correct.

Last updated
15/09/2015

PRACTICALITIES: Can you please indicate if it is relevant for tenderers willing to submit a tender to be SMEs or not (as referred to in Questionnaire 1 of Annex G)?

In accordance with Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC, each tenderer (and each member of the group in case of joint tender) must declare whether it is a Small or Medium Size Enterprise, as it is clearly requested in the tender specifications. This information must be published in the award notice and is used for statistical purposes only.

Last updated
12/06/2016

LANGUAGE: On the website I found all information and the relevant forms to be completed in the English language. Is there any possibility to find the tender documents as well as the forms to be completed in other languages?

The tender documents as well as all the relevant forms to be completed are in the English language only. The tenderers though may complete these forms in any official language of the European Union as indicated in point 1 of the invitation letter.

Last updated
15/09/2015

LANGUAGE: As some supporting documents are in the national language we would like to know if this is accepted.

According to point 1 of the invitation letter, all EU languages are accepted as well as their combination.

Last updated
15/09/2015

ELIGIBILITY: We are part of a multinational company. Are we right in assuming that foreign sister or associated institutes which belong to our global organization are not to be considered as subcontractors?

Yes, entities belonging in the same companies group (this to be shown/described in the submitted “brief company profile”) are not considered as subcontractors. For further details on subcontracting, please refer to section 4 of the Tender documents.

Last updated
15/09/2015

ELIGIBILITY: Regarding the eligibility criteria of organizations to bid for the above tender, we would like to confirm whether only European Union member states can be part of project consortia or European non-EU countries as well.

Please refer to section 4 of the Tender documents where it is stated that “Participation in Cedefop tendering procedures is open on equal terms to all natural and legal persons or groupings of such persons (consortia) falling within the scope of the Treaties. It includes all economic operators registered in the EU and all EU citizens. Pursuant to Article 119 of the general Financial Regulation the participation is also open to all natural and legal persons from non-EU countries that have a ratified agreement with the European Union in the field of public procurement on the conditions laid down in that agreement. Cedefop can therefore accept offers from and sign contracts with tenderers from 35 countries, namely: the 28 EU Member States, 3 EEA Countries (Lichtenstein, Norway, Iceland) and 4 SAA Countries (FYROM, Albania Serbia and Montenegro).”

Last updated
15/09/2015

ELIGIBILITY: We are interested to submit a proposal but I have a question. We are an organization based in The Netherlands and have a co-operation with the UK, Belgium, and Denmark. We would like to form a consortium with these partners but I am not sure if that fits the requirements of the tender.

In accordance with point 4.1 of the Tender specifications, tenderers are allowed to form a formal or informal consortium with other institutions. All provisions related to submission of tenders from consortia are included in that point (and complemented with the request to fill-in Annex I, model 1 or 2 in such case). In order however for the tender to be eligible, it has to meet all requirements stated in the Tender specifications in terms of administrative and technical compliance.

Last updated
15/09/2015

ELIGIBILITY: We understand that in case the value of subcontracting is less than 10%, there is no required documentation from the subcontractor. Please confirm our understanding.

Yes, your understanding is correct. The documents listed in points 1, 2 and 3 of Section 4.2 are required only in cases when an individual subcontractor undertakes to perform above 10% of the work by value (documents for this sub-contractor), or if the total sub-contracting is above 40% of the work by value, independently of the individual subcontractor’s contribution to the work by value (documents for all sub-contractors).

In any case the tenderer must clearly indicate the identity of each subcontractor and the percentage of work by value that he will perform for this contract.

Last updated
15/09/2015

ELIGIBILITY: Section 3.2.2 Technical and professional capacity, Proofs/Evidences of Technical and professional capacity and Section 4.2 Subcontracting/subcontractors.

In case subcontracting is less than 10%, could the tenderer provide CVs and references from subcontractor to cover the respective selection criteria?

Please refer to the penultimate paragraph in Section 4.2. The subcontractor(s) (if any) have to provide the documents (incl. CVs) to prove their capacity only for the parts of the contract that are relevant to them. The evidence provided will be checked to ensure that the tenderer with the subcontractor(s) altogether fulfil the criteria.

Last updated
15/09/2015

ELIGIBILITY: As a grouping of two organisations coming together to submit a tender response it is clear that each consortium member must complete questionnaires 2 and 3 of Annex G. However, what is unclear is whether each individual consortium member needs to meet the minimum selection criteria or whether the consortium, as a whole, will be judged, in these aspects, as one: that is, must each consortium member demonstrate the minimum level/depth/length of experience or is this for the consortium, as a whole, to show?

The same question applies to contracts performed in the past three (3) years in a certain field: that is, must each consortium member demonstrate the required minimum contract value (i.e. invoiced financial value) of 250,000 €, for example? Or is this for the consortium, as a whole, to show?

As indicated in point 3.2.1-Economic and Financial capacity “In case of a consortium (grouping) or subcontracting each member of the consortium and all sub-contractors (in line with points 4.1 or 4.2) must provide the required statement for the economic and financial capacity, but the assessment of whether the minimum requirement is met will bear on the consortium as a whole or the tenderer together with his subcontractors.” That means that as a grouping of 2 organisations, if you have to prove a required min. of 500,000 Euro, “as a whole” means that the 2 organisations must have a turnover of 500,000 Euro in total.

In point 3.2.2, last paragraph it is indicated that “In the case of consortium or subcontracting, the consortium or the tenderer with all subcontractors together have to provide evidence of technical and professional capacity as a whole (please see also 4.1 and/or 4.2)”. Thus the answer to your question about list of contracts performed, is that the consortium as a whole (in your case the 2 organisations together) must show the required evidence of 250,000 Euro invoiced financial value.

Last updated
15/09/2015

SELECTION: Would it be possible to propose to have two team members jointly form the team leadership with complementary experience, skills and capabilities to meet the requirements?

No, two team members may not jointly form the team leadership with complementary experience, skills and capabilities to meet the requirements as the requirements defined in point 3.2.2 concern one profile/person. In addition, this would not respect the principle of equal treatment among the tenders submitted.

Last updated
14/09/2015

AWARD: Regarding Chapter 5 Award of the contract, it is stated “A quality-price ratio will be calculated for each tender by dividing the total points for quality by the price, thus indicating which tender represents the best value for money.”

What decimal point do you use to compare the total scores (quality-to-price ratio) for two different proposals?

What rules are used for rounding or cropping the remaining digits?

The outcome of the division of total points by price is usually normalised by “1000 or 10000” in order to have a readable number. In any case the number of decimals used is such as to allow fair comparison between offers that come very close in the evaluation.

Last updated
14/09/2015

VAT: According to point 5.3 of the call Cedefop is exempt from VAT, and the VAT shall not be included in the calculation of the price quoted. But some subcontractors might be not VAT-exempt, so how is VAT to be treated in the bid? Does the bid have to include VAT or can this be declared additionally? What will be the figure for comparison of bids: the net costs or the costs including VAT?

The amounts that will be considered for the financial evaluation are those without VAT. Such charges shall therefore not to be included in the calculation of the price quoted.

Only for tenderers established in Greece the VAT amount must be indicated separately in the Financial Proposal, because if the selected Contractor is based in Greece, the invoices should include VAT which will be paid by Cedefop and later reimbursed to Cedefop by the Greek State.

Normally the amount invoiced by the selected Contractor will be exempt from VAT under the Articles 3 and 4 of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the European Communities (PPI). Therefore, if the selected Contractor is established in other countries (not in Greece) the VAT exemption is direct (invoices should be submitted without VAT).

The above obviously refer to invoices submitted by the Contractor to Cedefop in relation to implementation of the contract. Invoices submitted by subcontractor(s) to the Contractor in that context shall obey the relevant rules applicable in the country where the Contractor and/or the subcontractor(s) have their seat. The tenderer must take such cases into account in calculating his financial offer, which will be binding on both sides in case of contract award. Cedefop will have no financial deals whatsoever with any subcontractor(s).

Last updated
14/09/2015

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