Invest NI’s efforts to maximise the potential benefits of the north’s dual market access to the EU and UK markets has been hit, after the agency was forced to re-run the tender process for key support contracts.
The arm’s length body initially launched a tender process in October 2023 for the contracts worth a total of £200,000.
Invest NI said it wanted to appoint a framework of contractors to provide advice, analysis and guidance to the economic support agency, and its overseas offices, as well as potential foreign direct investors, and the Department for the Economy “on the benefits (or otherwise) of Northern Ireland’s dual market access proposition brought about through the Northern Ireland Protocol and Windsor Framework”.
But the tender process was unexpectedly cancelled by Invest NI last month after “ambiguity” was identified in the wording of award criteria.
Invest NI has now been forced to restart the entire process, setting it back by around three months.
The tender is split between a £150,000 contract for advice and analysis on the movement of goods, and a £50,000 contract for analysis on the movement of people.
Each contract was advertised for the provision of services for a one-year duration.
Asked to clarify why it had cancelled and restarted the tender process, Invest NI referred to the explanation given by the Construction and Procurement Delivery (CPD) to prospective bidders last month.
CPD is the public sector body responsible for government procurement in the north.
It said: “Following the evaluation and a review of submissions received for this tender opportunity, Invest NI has identified ambiguity in the wording of award criteria ‘AC1 Team Experience’ (Lot 1) and ‘AC1 Personnel Experience’ (Lot 2) in the ‘instructions to tenderers’ document which has impacted on the objective assessment of all tenders.
“To ensure that the principles of transparency and non-discrimination are upheld, Invest NI has made the decision to cancel the current competition and undertake a full review of the published criteria.
“Once this review has taken place, a new tender competition will be published. It is expected that a new tender competition will be published in early January 2024.”
Invest NI has not offered any further detail on the nature of the “ambiguity”, but said the new competition is now live.
It comes more than six months after Belfast-based foreign direct investment (FDI) specialist OCO Global was awarded a £10.6m contract by the Department for Business & Trade in London to support the UK Government’s efforts to attract new inward investment.
The company has now set up a new base in Nottingham to support its work for the government.
