Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2020-05-25
Buyer: Belfast City Council
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
CPV classification: 71314000: Energy and related services | 71314200: Energy management services | 71314300: Energy-efficiency consultancy services
Estimated value: 300000 GBP

Technical requirements: The purpose of this prior information notice is to request expressions of interest from the market in participating in a market engagement exercise for the provision of energy procurement management services i.e. risk policy development and corporate governance, procurement strategy execution, portfolio reporting, budget forecast reporting and commodity tender management. The aim of this market engagement exercise is for the Council to develop it’s understanding of the market capability and capacity for the range of services; inform the market of an upcoming tender opportunity and encourage competition; and gather input from the market on how best to structure the tender/contract in order to get best VFM for the service.
At this stage (and based on the current services being delivered) the Council envisage the scope of the service to include:
1) Risk policy development and corporate governance – design and implementation of an effective risk strategy for the purchasing commodities in line with Council risk appetite and objectives;
2) Procurement strategy execution — monitoring the appropriate commodity market and execute transactions in line with agreed purchasing strategy;
3) Portfolio reporting – regular reporting on the performance of purchasing strategy as well as daily commodity market reports;
4) Budget forecast reporting – annual budget forecast report in line with the Council’s budgeting processes and timescales;
5) Tendering service of both fixed and flexible energy portfolios – design of an effective procurement strategy for the tendering of electricity and gas contracts in line with procurement law and best practice. Includes the design of tender documents including quality and cost evaluation models.
The Council’s current electricity and gas contracts have the potential to run up to 31 March 2025 (they started in April 2020). The Council would therefore propose that this new energy management services contract would be let for up to 5 years (1 April 2021 to 31 March 2026) to align with the re-tendering of the electricity and gas contracts and a 1 year exit/handover phase in the final year.
Please submit your expression of interest to cps@belfastcity.gov.uk by 3 p.m. on 12 June 2020 to participate in the market engagement exercise for this requirement.
At this stage the market engagement exercise will involve the completion of a questionnaire that will be issued to those who have expressed an interest in response to this notice.
Upon receipt of all questionnaire responses, the Council may choose to discuss the content of questionnaire responses with organisations in more detail, if required. This may be conducted via Skype/ Microsoft Teams format given the current Covid-19 circumstances. The Council reserves the right to only conduct these further meetings with a limited number of respondents.


Award value: 300000