Procurement

Oldham Council spends nearly £87m on supplies and services, providing businesses of all sizes with a wide range of commercial opportunities. The Council's priority is to secure the best value for money throughout a large and diverse organisation.

Register for contract opportunities

You need to register to access all opportunities and contracts to existing and new suppliers:

• Register on The Chest - procurement portal

Advertising contracts

All contracts that need to be advertised will appear on The Chest or at least one local newspaper and/or a relevant trade or professional journal.

Where the value of contracts exceed the EU thresholds a notice will be published in the Supplement of the Official Union Journal of the European Union (OJEU).

The Council publishes a Prior Indicative Notice in OJEU to give warning of contracts to be advertised in OJEU throughout the year.

Tendering process

The tendering process chosen is at the Council's discretion.

Open tendering

One-stage bidding process where all interested service providers respond to an advertisement which invites them to submit a tender.

The advertisement will state where interested parties may obtain tender documents and the last date when tenders will be accepted.

Restricted tendering

Two-stage bidding process where potential contractors expressing an interest in bidding are evaluated and a shortlist is drawn up to invite bids.

The public notice will give details on what information must be submitted by the supplier or how to receive the necessary documentation to be able to express an interest in being short listed.

The restricted process is likely to be applied when a large number of applicants is anticipated, allowing that number to be reduced to a manageable list of tenderers.

Negotiated tendering

The Council, under certain very limited circumstances, negotiates with one or more organisations of its choice.

Supplier selection

Supplier selection is based on:

• Overall value for money
• Quality
• Reliability
• Safety
• Good design
• Timely delivery
• Maintenance and after sales support

Potential suppliers must demonstrate:

• Financial, commercial and technical capability to fully meet the contractual requirements
• Past performance with reference to contracts of a similar nature
• Commitment to equal opportunities in employment, the environment and safety
• References

For high value service contracts, we evaluate suppliers on a set of pre-determined factors.

These criteria will be set out in both our advertisements and our tender documents.

The number of individuals/companies invited to tender will vary with the nature of the order and the availability of suitably qualified suppliers.

In many cases it will not be practical to include all those suppliers who express an interest, and where there is a wide field of potential suppliers we may undertake a pre qualification process.

Invoices from suppliers

To ensure prompt payment for goods and/or services, please submit all invoices with a Purchase Order Number.

You can get a Purchase Order Number from the Oldham Council officer ordering the goods or service with you.

Valid Purchase Order Numbers from Oldham Council will be in the format ‘OL20nnnnnn‘ (where ‘n’ is a number).