Compliance requirements
The tender documents include the standard exclusion grounds. A bidder or its management, administrative or supervisory body member, or a person authorised to represent or control the bidder may be excluded if there is a final conviction for participation in a criminal organisation, corruption, fraud, terrorist offences, money laundering, child labour or other listed grounds. The bidder may be asked to confirm whether any such grounds apply and, where relevant, whether self-cleaning measures have been taken. The machine-readable notice did not include the full list in plain language; the exact exclusion grounds must be checked in the tender documents.
Qualification criteria and exclusion grounds
The bidder must have completed at least 2 analytical studies or projects during the 36 months before the start of the procurement, and both projects must have included at least one of the following: labour or staff structure analysis, wage level or labour cost analysis, or scenario-based cost impact or financial modelling.
The bid must include a methodology description with separate sections for data collection and QA/QC, mapping of occupational groups or roles, logic for determining wage levels or wage groups, and the logic for financial and price impact analysis, including assumptions, scenarios and sensitivity analysis.
The bidder must also describe how confidential aggregated data will be handled securely: storage, access control, backup and deletion. In addition, the bidder must confirm that no personal data will be collected or processed and that only aggregated data will be used.
The team must include at least 3 different persons and at minimum the following key roles: project manager/lead analyst, water expert, economics/finance analyst, labour/personnel analyst, and data analyst/statistician. Roles may overlap, but any overlap must be justified in the bid and the workload must remain realistic.
The project manager/lead analyst must have at least 5 years of experience in managing analytical studies or projects during the last 10 years and at least 2 completed studies that included data collection (survey and/or interviews) or a quantitative model. A CV and the team member’s consent to participate in contract performance must be submitted.
The water expert must have at least 5 years of experience in the water sector during the last 10 years and participation in at least 1 project concerning the organisation of water services, investments or continuity of operations. A CV or other proof of competence must also be submitted for this role.
The bid must include the names of the team members, their roles, justifications for any role overlap, and a description of the division of work. The bidder must also confirm compliance with the tender documents, submit a bid that meets the minimum requirements, and provide any equivalent evidence where applicable.