Notes Educational Material Distribution

The Bank of England is looking for a supplier to store banknote-related educational materials (provided by the Bank), and distribute these materials upon receipt of online orders. The supplier will also manage the online ordering process via an automated online ordering system.

No information contained this notice or in any communication made between the Bank and any Supplier in connection with this Tender shall be relied upon as constituting a contract, agreement or representation that any contract shall be offered. The Bank reserves the right to change the basis of, or the procedures for, the Process, to terminate the Process at any time or not to award any contract.

Additional information: EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST: the bidders should register interest by email to the address stated above with the completed pre-qualification questions before the deadline, and register on www.bankofenglandtenders.co.uk in parallel (please note that it takes roughly two working days for registration to take effect). The tender documents will be released on 5th December to the five bidders who have passed and scored the highest on the pre-qualification questions.

1. AUTOMATIC PASS/FAIL PRE-QUALIFICATION QUESTIONS:

1a. Can you dispatch, in appropriate packaging, large volumes of paper materials, where large volumes would represent c.1,500 orders per year / c.200,000 items, and the materials could include double-sided A5, A4, A3 posters, A5 booklets and stickers? Please note that busy periods/spikes in activity vary year on year and are dependent on withdrawals / new note issues, etc., so could be substantially higher or lower in any given year. [Yes/No]

1b. Can you dispatch orders daily and within 72 hours of an order being received? [Yes/No]

1c. Can you electronically provide stock reports (including stock movement, usage, etc.) and monthly Management Information (including total number of orders, items distributed, etc.)? [Yes/No]

1d. Do you have a storage environment that can securely hold 200,000-300,000 items of a confidential nature (of the types indicated above), in a way that prevents unauthorised access and sight of these items? [Yes/No]

1e. Could you provide an automated online ordering system which would directly send requests for banknote education materials to the distribution company, with only exceptions (determined from a set of pre-defined rules) being sent to the Bank for verification, and would this system have the capability of gathering additional information about the customer ordering the materials (contact details, type of entity, reason for placing the order, etc.)? [Yes/No]

2. SCORED PRE-QUALIFICATION QUESTIONS:

In less than 500 words for each question, please answer the following (worth 10 marks each, for a possible total of 20 marks):

2a. What current and previous experience do you have of dealing with and handling the distribution of items of a confidential nature?

2b. What current and previous experience do you have of distributing volumes of paper materials of the scale indicated in Q1?

SCORING CRITERIA FOR 2:

10. (Excellent) - Exceeds the required standard. Response answers the question with precision and relevance. Includes improvement through innovation / added value.
8. (Good) - Meets the standard required. Comprehensive response in terms of detail and relevance to the question.
6. (Acceptable) - Meets the standard in most aspects but fails in some areas. Acceptable level of detail, accuracy and relevance.
4. (Limited) - Fails the standard in most aspects but meets some. Limited/inadequate information, or only partially addresses the question.
2. (Inadequate) - Significantly fails to meet the standard. Inadequate detail provided / answers not directly relevant to the question.
0. (Not eligible for consideration) - Completely fails to meet the standard. No response.