The Department of Justice, with the support the Department of Rural and Community Development and Pobal is organising a series of tender training webinars targeted at the social enterprise sector with the aim of upskilling social enterprises to be capable of submitting compelling and competitive bids. Public bodies in Ireland will spend upwards of €36 billion next year on supplies, services and works. Many social enterprises have the track record, expertise and experience to tender for these opportunities or to become sub-contractors. However, we know that tendering can be a bit daunting for many companies. This is why we have organised these pilot training sessions.
All of the sessions will start at 10am and will last no more than 2 hours each. Zoom will be used to host the webinars. There is a separate registration process for each event. The Zoom links will be emailed out prior to each session.
Session 1:
An Introduction to procurement: navigating your way through the eTenders website
Thursday 26th November
This webinar is best suited for social enterprises with limited or no experience of tendering that want to win public contracts as a new way of growing their business. The basics of tendering and identifying new business opportunities will be explained. All participants will be encouraged to register correctly on eTenders, the Government’s portal through which tender opportunities are published. Information sources will also be provided. After this session social enterprises will be in a position to start tendering.
Register here
Session 2 :
How to become a public sector supplier: A practical guide to writing competitive tenders for social enterprises
Thursday 3rd December
This webinar will explain how the procurement process works from the public buyers’ perspective: from pre-publication of a tender to contract close. All tenders require social enterprises to have minimum requirements such as insurance cover and reference sites. The session will demonstrate how to assemble a Bid Library of background compliance documents. In addition, the webinar will show social enterprises how to write and price tender submissions and to use feedback from buyers to make their bids more compelling and competitive.
Register here
Session Three:
The impact of social clauses in public procurement contracts
Thursday 10th December
This session will explore the impact of social clauses in public procurement contracts with case studies from those who have experience of them. Attendees will hear the Government’s commitment to their introduction, the plan for implementation as well as some lessons learned from the new Children’s Hospital experience
Register here
Session 4:
Consortia-led approach to public procurement:
Social enterprises working in partnership to compete for public sector tenders
This session will focus on a consortia-led approach to tendering where a number of social enterprises combine forces in order to be able to compete for higher tariff contracts
This session will be held in January 2021. We will email you separately in relation to this once confirmed.
We anticipate that there will be great interest in these sessions. Space is limited in order to ensure a supportive and participative learning environment is created, but we will do our best to arrange further sessions in the new year should there be sufficient interest.
