Over the years, several innovative techniques have been developed and have evolved to deal with the sole sourcing problem.
A consultant roster is a process that is used in a procurement system that involves the creation of a list of approved suppliers who may be retained to provide consulting services of a particular description.
Securing a position on such a list is usually achieved through some form of pre-qualification process, often following a request for proposals. For instance, a municipality or private sector company may create a roster of approved consulting engineers.
An RFP is put out for this purpose, not about the supply of work to any specific job, but rather with a view towards providing such consulting services that may be required from time to time.
Potential suppliers provide background information, identifying the type of consulting services that they are competent to carry out, also providing references and all other additional pertinent information.
As a rule, the top four to six most qualified consultants will then be placed on the respective rosters. These rosters will then be used for consultants where the estimated cost of the work to be done was less than a stipulated amount (e.g., the threshold price for the use of a formal tender process, as per the municipal purchasing bylaw).
To award a purchase order, the purchasing manager would use the roster to seek quotes from three of the consultants whose names appear on the list. The contract would ultimately be awarded to lowest of those quotes.
By limiting the selection of consultants to those who have participated in the open RFP process, the openness of the contract award system is maintained.
In addition, limiting the purchasing manager’s choice of consultant to those who have gone through the vetting process of the RFP helps to maintain the integrity of the contract award process.
What is essential is some provision in the purchasing procedures to ensure there is a properly monitored rotation in the list of consultants from whom quotes are obtained.
Ideally, during a one-year time frame, all the participants on the roster should have approximately the same amount of money divided equally amongst them.
This way one or two consultants don’t receive all the work when up to six consultants were placed on the roster.
In my experience, there are almost certain to be problems, if a manager can short-circuit a six-consultant roster by using the same three consultants when he or she goes out for a quote. One integrity maintenance device I have employed is the routine submission of a monthly report to the manager of purchasing detailing all contracts awarded using the roster.
In this way, any apparent pattern in the award of those contracts can be detected.
A key consideration is to extend such a system to be used as alternative to an open competition. Most municipalities place a cap on contracting outside the formal tender process.
Unfortunately, there are concerns that the traditional tender/RFP methods of acquiring such services is no longer attracting a sufficient range of candidates.
A large municipality may send out hundreds of requests for quotation, tender and similar solicitations of interest for consulting services over the course of a year.
Often only two or three bids are received by the close of each tender.
The apparent reason is that unsuccessful bidders tend to avoid bidding for such contracts if they do not perceive that they have a sufficient chance of winning.
The key question thus becomes whether there is some method of modifying the consultant contract award process so that competition is enhanced.
An emerging idea is to streamline the bid process to make it more attractive to consultants to compete for municipal work.
Stephen Bauld is a government procurement expert and can be reached at swbauld@purchasingci.com. Some of his columns may contain excerpts from The Municipal Procurement Handbook published by Butterworths.
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