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Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (PQQs)

Any organisations wishing to bid for service delivery contracts should have this documentation ready. The Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) is often a stage of the commissioning process. A commissioner will ask provider organisations to complete a PQQ and select organisations that have the ability to deliver a contract. This gives the commissioner a list of pre-selected providers to take forward to the next stage of the process.

There is often a short timescale for completing a PQQ, so the more documentation you have ready ‘on the shelf’ (or in a dedicated folder in your computer files), the easier your life will be when you come to completing the PQQ.

Some of this information will also be required for grant applications.

Organisational details

  • Charity number and company number of your organisation, and when the charity and/or company were registered.
  • All contact details – phone, fax, address
  • In one sentence what you do – your primary mission
  • A list of all contracts and service level agreements the organisation currently holds
  • Governing document (e.g. memorandum and articles of association) – please check your governing document and be aware of the operational limits of your organisation – e.g. can your organisation only work in Kensington & Chelsea, or only in West London, or only with disabled people, or only with people from a particular ethnic minority group?
  • List of 3-4 people that would be willing to be referees, e.g. council officers that monitor your grants or contracts, NHS commissioners, lead partners of any consortium projects you have been involved in.

Company directors or trustees

  • A complete list of all your company directors’ names and personal addresses.
  • Have any of the above been employed by the local authority or local NHS? (You may want to also check if they have been employed in Westminster or Hammersmith & Fulham councils)
  • Have any of their relatives been employed by the 3 councils or NHS?
  • Have any of the above been involved in any organisation or company that has had a contract terminated in the last five years (and give details)
  • Have any of the above been bankrupt or been involved in any organisation that has been liquidated or gone into receivership?
  • Have any of the above been convicted of a criminal offence relevant to the business or profession?

You might want to gather the above information after your AGM when you carry out your induction for the new board. This will save a frantic ring-around while you are completing your PQQ.

Finance and insurance

  • SIGNED audited accounts for last 3 years (and draft management accounts for the most recent year if the accounts have not yet been signed off)
  • Details of bank, address, bank sort code and account number
  • Name and address of accountant
  • Copy of finance rules or procedures
  • Copy of current professional indemnity, public liability and employer’s liability insurances
  • A bank reference (on the headed notepaper of the bank), to whom it may concern.

Organisational policies

  • Customer care policy
  • Complaints procedure
  • Health and safety policy
  • Equal opportunities policy
  • Environmental policy
  • Business continuity plan (see below)
  • Safeguarding children policy (where relevant)
  • Safeguarding vulnerable adults policy (where relevant)
  • Confidential information policy
  • Intellectual property rights policy
  • Counter-fraud and security management policy
  • Whistleblowing policy

(For a library of model policy documents visit the website of Voluntary Action Islington or NCVO)

Quality

  • Details of any quality standards that you have achieved (e.g. PQASSO), or any formally accredited quality marks (e.g. Investor In People, Matrix), and when the standard was last reviewed or accredited
  • Record of health and safety incidents recorded over last three years

Standard statements

These are some common questions that you will be asked in a PQQ process. It would be useful if you could have some standard answers ready, say 300-500 words. For these statements, it is important that you actually describe what you do, and give examples. Do not just cut-and-paste from your organisational policies.

  • The specifics of how you go about delivering your service, or your ‘business model’. For example an advice agency might have a description of how they assess a new client, how they ensure the client is seen by the right worker, how they are allocated a case-worker, how they might be referred to other agencies, how you follow up to see the referral has been taken up, how you monitor the outcome for the client – did they get the correct advise, did it lead to any outcome?
  • How do you deliver quality assurance in practice?
  • How do you communicate health and safety to your workforce?
  • How do you ensure equal opportunities day-to-day in your services?
  • How do you deliver continuous staff improvement? – and how do you make sure all your staff, volunteers and trustees have the right skills and knowledge to contribute to the successful running of your organisation, and its mission?
  • How do you use monitoring data to improve your service to beneficiaries or clients?
  • How do you deal with risk management, incidents and user and staff safety?
  • How do you in practice ensure business continuity? For example what key actions your organisation will take to ensure continued provision to clients should there be a major event (e.g. flu pandemic, fire, utility failure, IT systems failure).

Credit check

  • Some commissioners will run a credit check on organisations as part of the PQQ assessment process. We advise you to run a check on your company so you can anticipate if there might be a problem. They cost around £10. Example credit check company: CREDIT SAFE

‘Business Continuity Plan’ explained

  • Business Continuity Management is a holistic process that identifies potential threats to an organisation and the impacts to business operations those threats, if realised, might cause and which provides a framework for building organisational resilience with the capability for an effective response.
  • The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 requires Local Authorities to ensure, through their procurement contracts, that all suppliers have Business Continuity Plans in place to ensure that they can deliver their critical services and products in the event of an emergency or business continuity incident.