Is PQQ Writing becoming easier

According to a Cabinet Office statement earlier this week, all consultancy contracts worth over £100,000 will have to be procured by means of a framework agreement by mid-2012. This framework, which is known as ConsultancyONE, will be open to the wider public sector and will replace any and all existing framework agreements. The framework agreement will last 4 years and, over the course of those years, around £2 billion of consultancy will be purchased.

One of the main advantages of this framework agreement for the government is that all major contracts will be in one place, providing the cabinet office with superior discernibility and supervision of all larger contracts. This should support the government’s already conscious efforts to reduce expenditure on consultancy and procurement as a whole; in the past year alone the government has been able to condense consultancy spending from £1.4 billion to only £500 million.
Whilst the framework incorporates clear spending controls, it also implements measures that are aimed at making it more available to SME consultancies. As stated in previous articles, Sir Francis Maude was introducing plans to scrap the more onerous sections inside a PQQ, with the idea that this would further encourage SMEs to bid towards government contracts. So, writing a PQQ should be much easier.

This new consultancy framework agreement is no exception to this and will include a simplified PQQ composed of a maximum of 70 questions (previous PQQs have been known to contain over 100). More details will also be provided in the OJEU notice, along with questions and guidance for evaluation. As well as making the primary stages of the tendering process ‘easier’ and more accessible, the framework will break down into much smaller lots for specialist consultancy. These small lots will be more suitable for, and geared towards, SME specialist consultancies.

Barriers to entry for these consultancies into the public sector have been disposed of, namely the requirement for previous experience of working with the public sector. The Crown Representative, Stephen Allott, helped put together this framework and had this to say on the agreement: “This is a real step forward. SMEs are considered in every aspect of this contract framework. It’s not rhetoric, it’s reality.”
This is all fantastic news for SME consultancies across the UK, but are alarm bells now ringing for larger consultancy companies? In years gone by, it could be considered that SMEs have been discriminated against in the public sector, with barriers to entry and unreasonable prerequisites in place, but is it possible that it’s now overly geared toward SMEs? It could be construed that there is now a form of affirmative action or positive discrimination, which could have detrimental knock-on effects for larger organisations. Only time will tell, but there may be a mixed response to this new framework agreement across the consulting industry.