Guide: The competitive dialogue
This guide is based on recent experiences with the Central Government Real Estate Agency, and the ministeries of Infrastructure and Water Management and Defense for implementing procurement in several integrated DBFM(O) projects (October 2009)
Several references and titles in the guide are no longer up to date. The content of this guide however is still applicable.
The competitive dialogue procedure differs significantly from the ’ordinary’ public or and restricted procedures. The greatest differences lies in the manner in which the request is made. The competitive dialogue begins with a question for which there is no known (unequivocal). The contracting authority uses the solution submitted by the candidates to conduct a dialogue that results in an optimisation of the request and offer. When the dialogue is conducted in an appropriate manner the contracting authority receives tenders offering an optimum solution at a reasonable price and the part submitting the tender is offered an attractive contract with sufficient economic prospects.
Consequently, an optimum solution depends on the quality of the dialogue between the contracting authority and the parties submitting the tenders. However, how should an appropriate dialogue be organised? How do you ensure that all parties – both the tenderers and your internal clients – are heard? This is the subject of this guide, which is based on recent experiences of the Rijksgebouwendienst, Rijkswaterstaat and the Ministry of Defence with the use of competitive dialogue in the tendering of a number of integral DBFM(O) projects. The authors have written this brochure to share the experience they have with all those wishing to make use of this procedure.
The layout of this guide follows the phases of the tender process. Chapter 2 reviews the initial design of the project and discusses the most important decisions that need to be made before the competitive dialogue can begin. Chapter 3 examines the steps to be worked through before the announcement of the project, and Chapter 4 the selection of the candidates. The authors then discuss the dialogue phase in detail in Chapter 5, with a review of the determination of the objective, the process and the content. Chapter 6, the last chapter of the guide, concludes with the final phase of the procedure: the assessment of the final tenders, the award of the contract and the rejection of the tenders.