For years, the first hurdle in many public tenders was the pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ), later the standard selection questionnaire (SQ): pages of questions about your finances, insurance, experience and policies, used to decide who got to tender at all. Under the Procurement Act 2023 the language has changed to "conditions of participation", and the rules on what a buyer can ask are tighter. Here's what you're likely to see, and what a buyer can't make you do.
Conditions of participation
Section 22 lets a buyer set conditions a supplier must meet to be awarded a public contract. They can only be about your legal and financial capacity or your technical ability to perform the contract, and they must be a proportionate way of checking that, given the contract's nature, complexity and cost. The buyer must make them clear in the tender notice, with detail in the tender documents if needed.
Conditions are about you, the supplier; award criteria are about your tender. They're assessed separately, and once you've met the conditions your tender is scored on the award criteria alone. The Act doesn't prescribe a form: the old Standard Selection Questionnaire isn't required, though buyers may use "participation" templates that follow the Act.
Below the thresholds: no separate stage
For a regulated below-threshold contract where the buyer invites tenders, section 85 forbids restricting who may tender by reference to suitability. There can't be a separate PQQ-style stage before tenders that thins out the field. The buyer can still check suitability at award. (Exceptions include devolved Welsh authorities, frameworks and larger below-threshold works; see our below-threshold guide.)
What a buyer can't require
- Insurance in place before award. A buyer can't require insurance relating to the performance of the contract to be in place before it awards. It can set a condition that you will have the required levels when the contract starts, and ask for evidence such as a broker's confirmation. Insurance the law already requires, like employer's liability, can be asked for.
- Audited accounts you don't have to produce. A buyer can't require audited annual accounts from a supplier that the Companies Act 2006 doesn't require to be audited. It must look at other evidence of your financial capacity instead.
- Experience with one particular buyer. Conditions can ask for qualifications, experience or technical ability, including public sector experience, but not a prior award from a particular contracting authority.
- A qualification without its equivalents. If a condition names a qualification or certificate, the buyer must accept equivalents.
What you'll commonly be asked
These come up again and again in notices Bidlark reads. The checklist on each card shows which a notice mentions and whether your profile has it:
- Insurance levels: professional indemnity, public liability and employer's liability, often £1m, £2m, £5m or £10m.
- Turnover: a minimum yearly turnover, sometimes a multiple of the contract value (for example "1.5 times the estimated value").
- Certificates: Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus for work handling personal data or government systems; ISO 9001, 14001, 27001 or 45001 (or equivalents).
- Checks and clearance: basic or enhanced DBS for work with children or vulnerable adults; BPSS or SC clearance for some government work.
- Policies: equality and diversity, health and safety, safeguarding, data protection, environmental, a modern slavery statement, and for some large central government contracts a carbon reduction plan.
- Experience: examples of similar work, sometimes with a number of years.
Relying on another supplier
If you can't meet every condition alone, you may be able to meet it with others: bidding as a consortium, naming a subcontractor who meets part of it, or having another supplier guarantee your performance. The buyer must be satisfied the arrangement will be legally binding. For a micro firm, teaming with a partner can open contracts that would otherwise be out of reach.
Getting your answers ready
- Write the standard pieces once: a short company description, your policies, three case studies of similar work with outcomes.
- Keep certificates and insurance schedules in one folder with their expiry dates.
- Before you start a bid, check every condition against what you hold. If one is a hard no, stop: it can't be scored round.
- Answer what's asked, in the buyer's words, and keep to the word limits.