Are your policies ‘tender ready’?
November, December and January were a hive of activity for bids and tenders, with organisations contracting out the last of their 2012/13 budgets. February and March however, are running slow as usual, with organisations finalising their 2013/14 project budgets before they start putting contracts out to tender once more.
Why not take advantage of this little lull and get a head start?
You can be pretty sure that most PQQs will require you to provide copies of your policies and overviews of your working practices for some or all of the following:
- Health & Safety
- Equality and Diversity/Equal Opportunities
- Quality Assurance
- Recruitment
- Data Protection
- Environmental Management
- Business Continuity
- Social & Ethical Responsibilities
- Risk Assessment
- Safeguarding
Depending on your sector, you may require industry-specific policies, for example:
- CRB checking processes
- CDM (Construction Design & Management) policies
- Medication policies
- Codes of conduct
- Complaints procedures
- WEEE disposal policies
- Working Times Regulations
Having your policies and procedures up to date and ready to go can save you a lot of time when you’re busy working to a tender deadline. It can also help you get a head start on applying for industry certification which can, in some cases, enable you to bypass PQQs in part or entirely.
If there’s a policy you need that’s not listed above, just let me know.