SC23172 - Professional Services Framework - Market Engagement Opportunity

Tender description

Kent County Council’s Highways & Transportation team wish to secure the services of suppliers to undertake specialist levels of technical, environmental and engineering professional services. These services support the Council with engineering expertise to plan and design new highway infrastructure, including assessment of structural assets or specialist advice. The required core services fall within five key areas: Highways and Engineering Transportation Services Strategy Planning and Enforcement Surveys and Investigation Commercial Services The Council intends to put a Framework in place, to begin August 2024. The Council plans to conduct pre-procurement Market Engagement to inform its future procurement strategy. The Council will consider the feedback received to help inform the Council's options and further decision making. For the avoidance of doubt, this stage of the project is not part of a formal procurement process . Market Engagement responses will not be assessed, but will be used to gather information and gauge market interest in this opportunity. Lot 1: Procurement process: The Council's intention is to use Competitive Procedure with Negotiation for its upcoming procurement process. All details will be confirmed in the final published procurement documents. The Selection Questionnaire (SQ) is expected to be published in November 2023, with the ITT following in due course. Full details will be released via the Kent Business Portal. These dates are estimated only, to give prospective tenderers an indication of when the procurement process may commence. Market engagement: All interested organisations are invited to complete a Market Engagement Questionnaire, as the first stage of our Market Engagement activities. Please express an interest in this opportunity via the Kent Business Portal, at this stage the Market Engagement Questions will be made available. Please provide your response to the questions via the Kent Business Portal, no later than 13th October 2023. The Council will review all responses to the Market Engagement Questionnaire, and use this information to help shape the strategy for its upcoming Procurement process. Following this questionnaire stage, the Council intends to invite a selection of suppliers to participate in Market Engagement Discussions. Please note, if there is considerable interest in attending Market Engagement sessions, the Council may need to select a limited number of suppliers to participate based on question responses, to ensure that a good mix of organisations are represented. Should further feedback be required following the questionnaire and discussions, the Council will consider an additional round of discussions. Further details on this process can be found on page 2 of the Market Engagement Questionnaire document. The Council will publish a summary of findings from its Market Engagement activity on the Kent Business Portal at the end of this process and will do so in such a way that does not identify any of the contributing parties. This will be shared with all tenderers who express an interest during the procurement process.