Debriefing unsuccessful suppliers
A debrief helps suppliers improve their chances for future opportunities. Suppliers can also provide feedback and suggest ways to improve the tender process.
You must offer a debrief to any supplier or provider that has taken part in a competitive procurement process. The debrief can be over the phone, by email or letter, or face to face.
In the debrief, you must:
- provide the reasons why an offer was not successful
- explain how the offer performed against the evaluation criteria
- indicate the advantages of the successful offer
- answer any concerns or questions from the provider.
The information you give should be detailed enough to show the provider how they could improve for future opportunities.
Before the debrief
You should be able to justify information and any rationale that you give to the supplier.
- Pull together the RFx documents and evaluation material.
- Summarise how the offer was evaluated — scores, rankings, strengths and weaknesses.
At the debrief
- Allow 30–45 minutes for your debrief and the supplier's questions.
- Explain that debriefing is a way to help suppliers improve their competitive performance. Your constructive feedback aims to help the supplier in future opportunities.
- State that this is an informal discussion to explain how the supplier's offer performed against the evaluation criteria. Be clear that it’s not a forum to re-litigate the evaluation process.
- If appropriate, clarify that the evaluation was carried out by a multidisciplinary panel and you’ll try to answer the supplier's questions on behalf of the panel.
- Be clear that commercial sensitivity and confidentiality (in relation to the other offers) place some restrictions on what you can say.
- State that you can’t provide detailed information on pricing. You can say where the supplier ranked on total cost.
- Say who the successful supplier was (as long as their name has been published on GETS)
- Don’t show the supplier anyone else’s offer documents or evaluation material.
- Ask the provider for their feedback on the procurement process.
After the debrief
- Write up the meeting and file it with the probity records.
- Follow up on any outstanding points with the supplier.
- Give the supplier a summary of your debrief if they ask for it.