Establishment of a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS)
Alongside the publication of a Contract Notice for the main audit services procurement outlined above, PSAA will publish a second, separate Contract Notice to establish a DPS.
The form of selection questionnaire (SQ) used to apply to participate in the DPS will be the same as the one used for the main audit services procurement. Potential Suppliers who wish to express an interest in both the DPS and main procurement opportunities at the same time, they will only need to complete a single SQ response. However the completed SQ response will need to be separately uploaded to each procurement opportunity in the Delta e-tendering platform.
Once the DPS is established, a supplier that is not a member of the DPS (e.g. a new supplier to the local audit market) can apply to join at any point during the DPS’s period of validity if they satisfy the selection requirements, and none of the grounds for exclusion apply. PSAA would evaluate the supplier’s selection questionnaire within the legally required timescale of 10 working days of receipt unless there are justifiable reasons for an extension.
The establishment of a DPS has the potential to offer several benefits over the life of the term of the contracts awarded from the main audit services procurement:
- provide an alternative to the current practice of automatically seeking to distribute additional audits between contracted firms, for example, in the event of local government reorganisation, or if existing bodies request to join the scheme after the initial opt-in invitation and procurement processes;
- enable suppliers who are not awarded a contract from the main audit services procurement to bid for PSAA work, so they are not “locked out” (and provide winning suppliers the opportunity to bid for further audits);
- enable consideration of different contract durations and the potential to stagger future tenders; and
- should any of the 2017 audit services contracts need to be extended, provide a mechanism through which to undertake the procurement of services for the audits beyond 2023/24 or 2024/25.
Additionally, the DPS will provide a potential option in the event of not receiving sufficient bids to the main audit services procurement.
PSAA do not intend to use the DPS to procure replacements for auditor appointments made as part of the 2022 contract award before the end of the contract’s duration unless there is a specific reason for doing so. Such reasons might include the identification of an independence conflict, the breakdown of auditor-audited body relationship, or as a result of a supplier’s poor performance in line with agreed contract terms.
The key characteristics of any procurement undertaken through the DPS are likely to be very similar to those used for the main procurement. Clearly there will also need to be some differences, for example, to reflect that a DPS procurement may be for an individual audit, small group of audits or a more significant volume of work. All procurement documentation will be available when the Contract Notice for the DPS is published at the same time as the Contract Notice for the main procurement in early February 2022.
We expect the DPS to become operational during May 2022, and intend to maintain it throughout the next contract period.