How to buy:
Direct award
This is the recommended approach for hiring single or small groups of workers.
You should direct award if it is clear from the contract documents that there is one supplier who can meet your needs and provide you with the best value for money. Your requirements need to be fully covered by the framework specification.
Use the lot descriptions and our Rate Card and Award Support Tool to identify suitable suppliers.
Our tool will help you match the types of staff you need to the suppliers offering them. You can then rank the suppliers according to their offers and value for money. If you would like to use our tool, email us for a copy.
To direct award you should:
- identify suitable suppliers using our simple tool
- rank the suppliers by applying the direct award criteria
- award your contract using the simplified Short Order Form
Further competition
You should use further competition if you want to make adjustments to the specification or terms. You may also achieve better value for money through running a further competition. We also recommend this as the best route when arranging a project through output based delivery.
We do not recommend using further competition for single or small groups of workers. Suppliers may choose to not take part in competitions for smaller requirements.
The NHS Workforce Alliance can help customers to work out their requirements and best route to market. We can offer advice and help to put together a further competition based on your needs. If you would like more help, get in touch.
To run a further competition you will need to:
- identify which suppliers can meet your needs
- invite all capable suppliers to bid
- send further competition documents to all capable suppliers
- you will need to ensure you leave enough time for suppliers to return their tenders leaving reasonable time for them to return their tenders.
- you cannot introduce new award criteria, but you can make changes to the original award criteria
- you will need to let the suppliers know you are doing this
- evaluate the returned tenders against the award criteria
- you can adjust your evaluation plan and weightings within the range limits to reflect your circumstances and requirements
- award to the supplier who can provide the best value for money (the supplier with the highest score)
- if the supplier is unable to meet your needs, you should award to the supplier with the next highest score, and so on, until your needs are met
Rate cards
There are two versions of the rate card for customers:
- one is for NHS customers and includes the NHS England price caps
- the other is for the rest of the public sector to use
You can enter the worker pay rate and the rate card will calculate the full charge for whichever supplier is selected. It will also include all costs for hiring a temporary worker using this agreement.
The rate cards will also provide information on costs for hiring a fixed term worker and costs for transfer fees where applicable.
We have included an award support tool which will help you to find suppliers who can provide different roles in different regions. The tool will rank the eligible suppliers that fulfil the criteria in price order to help you select the tender with the best value for money. Email us for the rate card and award support tool.
Watch this tutorial on how to use the non-clinical staff customer rate card.
