Clarifications

In accordance with the Guidance on adopting and applying PPN 06/21, CCS can confirm that should a bidder not provide a Carbon Reduction Plan, their bid will fail unless the reason that the bidder is unable to provide a Carbon Reduction Plan is that the bidders organisation is less than 12 months old. If a bidding organisation is less than 12 months old and can confirm their commitment to achieving Net Zero by 2050 and that they will publish a Carbon Reduction Plan as soon as possible (providing details as to when it will be published), then under these circumstances, their bid will not fail. In all other circumstances, a bidder must provide a Carbon Reduction Plan in order to be appointed to the DPSQ. For clarity, the question applies to all bidders to the DPS, regardless of the size of the bidder, because there is potential for contracts to meet the threshold of £5m annual value. The Carbon Reduction plan must include the bidder's current carbon footprint and its commitment to reducing emissions to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050. If you would like assistance with creating your Carbon Reduction Plan, Crown Commercial Service will be holding a series of online training sessions on producing Carbon Reduction Plans, to help suppliers meet compliance of procurement policy, PPN 06/21. You are able to sign up for the training, free of charge, at this link. SME bidders may find the list of potential resources & tools at the end of the FAQ document useful in establishing their footprint to begin developing their plan. The FAQs can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/procurement-policy-note-0621-taking-account-of-carbon-reduction-plans-in-the-procurement-of-major-government-contracts

Please contact our portal providers NQC at support@nqc.com who will be able to advise.

This buyer clarification has been dealt with directly by the team.

The Science Based Targets Initiative is not acceptable for RM6126, we would need the Carbon Reduction Plan

You would not be able to view live opportunities linked to your new service filters as the invitation for these opportunities would have already been issued.

Suppliers can update, amend or change their service offering at any time throughout the life of the DPS agreement. The supplier will need to log back into the system - and they will see that they can go in and amend their offering by ticking more or less of the services listed, please be aware though that when they do, it will push their status back into 'assessing' (just while the DPS team check it) before going back into appointed.

The options can be left blank if not relevant, however please be aware buyers will search for suppliers who can provide these services to create a shortlist to be used for their tender.

This query is under the Research and Insights clarification section - you are required to have the Cyber Essentials (basic) certification OR ISO 270001 in place already in order to be appointed to this agreement.

This is a query from a buyer and has been addresses directly.

Per Section 13 of the RM6126 DPS Appointment Form in the bid pack 'The Supplier will pay, excluding VAT, 1% of all the Charges for the Deliverables invoiced to the Buyer under all Order Contracts.

CCS is happy for this document, the Letter of Confirmation to be amended in order to change section 2 to reflect the organisation correctly and to best suit the contracting authority who is supporting your application by confirming the work you undertook - please be reassured that these documents are not contractual (despite the look and feel of them)

At minimum you need to hold either current Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus or ISO27001 certification before being appointed onto the DPS.

Your contract example must clearly show who has carried out the work, so you would need to amend the Letter of Confirmation of Works so the contract example names the individual and not a company, and the client organisation confirms "We are able to verify that the works in this statement were solely carried out by ******, who is now currently the owner of ***** , and to which organisation this application to the DPS applies.

The Cyber Essentials certificate would need to cover the part of the organisation that they are using to apply for the DPS

We must have one contract example from the organisation that wishes to be appointed to the DPS. Please see Attachment 1 and 1a in the bid pack.

This does not seem to be a question on the Research and Insights SQ and DPS

You can continue to be invited and bid on ITTs whilst the changes are going through but this will be based on your old selections. New services can only be seen by customers once changes have been made and the t&cs re signed - the assessment after the amendments should take around 3 days to assess once submitted.

Please see the document 'Read First RM6126 DPS Needs' in the bid pack - at paragraph 73 you will see the list of non-applicable questions. As stated in the bid pack, a response is not required to those questions.

No, suppliers cannot be added to a tender that has been released

This is correct, the document in question is Attachment 1a found in question 56 of the selection questionnaire. Please see Attachment 1 in the Bid Pack for guidance.