Executive Compass helps gas servicing and heating contractors bid for and win tenders and framework places with councils, housing associations and other public sector organisations. Our experience over the years includes successful bids involving Bristol City Council, Stonewater, Guildford Borough Council, Loughborough University and a host of other councils and HA’s.
Gas servicing tenders are always made up of statutory safety requirements, resident-facing delivery, compliance data and reporting, and demanding performance targets, and so buyer expectations are very high. Understanding what buyers are looking for in and having an in-depth knowledge of facilities management tender criteria is crucial in successfully securing the right contracts for your business.
Gas servicing and heating opportunities fall into two broad categories:
- Domestic properties are primarily councils and housing associations managing occupied and void housing stock. Landlords have duties under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, including annual gas safety checks on relevant appliances and flues. They are good contracts to win and due to their nature are going to be around for a good while yet.
- Non-domestic are organisations managing education, healthcare, civic, commercial and other estates.
Although many of the activities in the tendering process are similar, domestic and non-domestic contracts do create different operational challenges.
Typically, domestic tenders place a huge emphasis on resident communication, access management and maintaining statutory compliance, while non-domestic contracts tend to focus more on minimising disruption to building users and coordinating works around operational requirements. For example, think of how you would describe your processes if you were servicing appliances in a library and why yours are better than your competitors.
Executive Compass has supported bidders in both markets for many years, with gas servicing one of the very first sectors we worked on in 2009.
We can help you even though contract values can range from around £100,000 to several million pounds over multi-year contract periods.
Typical services include:
- Breakdown and repairs: this includes a 24/7, 365 emergency call-out service with prescribed response times and reactive installations.
- Inspection, servicing and maintenance: this involves regular servicing, annual safety checks and issuing of Landlord Gas Safety Certificates.
- Planned boiler and heating-system replacement programmes: this covers the replacement of boilers or the entire heating system, as well as fuel-switch programmes.
- Low-carbon heating and decarbonisation: this includes air and ground source heat pump installation and servicing, hybrid systems and retrofit works, often funded through government programmes like the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund.
- One-off central, communal or commercial heating-plant replacement and associated works.
For broader heat-pump and building-services opportunities, see our Mechanical and Electrical Tenders page.
Writing Tenders for Gas Servicing and Installation
Different buyers have different priorities and needs, and those needs determine the evidence you need to include with your tender. However, we work with bidders to ensure that responses meet the buyer’s specific requirements and don’t rely on standard content copied and pasted from previous submissions.
The Gas Servicing Tender Process
The existing two stage procurement is still used for older frameworks and some procurement processes.
Historically, this commonly involved:
- a Selection Questionnaire or PQQ covering organisational standing, compliance, certification and experience
- a quality/tender stage assessing how the service would actually be delivered.
For new regulated procurements under the Procurement Act 2023, terminology and process have changed and above threshold supplier information is now supported through the Central Digital Platform. However, contracting authorities can set proportionate “conditions of participation” relating to legal and financial capacity and technical ability, meaning that bidders should not assume every new procurement will follow the old SQ/PQQ model. Always work from the specific tender notice and documentation issued by the contracting authority and don’t make assumptions!
Where a selection questionnaire is still being used, our team can support the completion of the submission through our Selection Questionnaire writing service.