How are government IT bids scored?

A public buyer hands you its marking scheme in advance. Firms that write to it win more often than firms with better products that don't.

The usual steps

1. Compliance. Late bids and bids that miss a mandatory requirement are usually rejected without being scored.
2. Quality. Evaluators, often a panel, score each question against a published scale, commonly 0 to 5, then agree scores. Some tenders set a minimum score to stay in.
3. Price. Often scored relative to the lowest bid, and in many tenders kept separate from quality scoring.
4. Interviews or demos, in some tenders, which can carry a large share of the marks.

Read the weights

• The price-quality ratio tells you what matters most. A tender weighted mostly to quality rewards a strong answer; one weighted mostly to price means you need to be close to the cheapest.
• Each quality question has its own weight. Spend your effort in proportion.
• Read the description of the top score and write to it.

Make scoring easy

Answer in the order of the question and use its words. Prove each claim with a named client, a number and a result. Don't hide evidence in appendices that evaluators aren't told to read.

After the result, ask for a debrief to see your scores. See how government tenders are scored.