Call for tenders' details
Status
Submission date
23/11/2015
Answer date
30/11/2015
Language
Status
Answered
Question details
Subject
Senior versus Junior Consultants
Question
Upon reading the question nº 21, submitted on 17-Nov and the corresponding answer published by the EEA on 19-Nov, included in the following link: https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/qa/question.html?questionId=10651 , regarding the possibility of a contractor being able to freely make a consultant with more than 5 years of professional expertise work as a junior consultant. We would like to request the following clarification: This situation could lead to a tender submitting a financial offer where the price for a Junior Intra Mural Consultant is higher than the price offered for a Senior Intramural consultant. Given the specified “weighting factors” for the evaluation and award criteria for the financial offer, this situation, where a Junior Intramural Consultants (who is really senior consultant) can be quoted with a higher price than Senior Intramural Consultants, this would give an unfair advantage to companies who tender using this “trick”. We consider that this can be construed as an example of professional misconduct and should be explicitly prohibited for this tender. Can you please clarify if this will be permitted or not, i.e. can junior consultants be quoted with a higher price than senior consultants in the financial offer to be included in Annex 5 - Price Quotation?
Answer
30/11/2015
With reference to the provisions in section 12.2.3 of the tender specifications on the selection criteria on technical and professional capacities, first bullet on human resources, as well as the information on the consultants’ technical expertise to be provided in a cross table drafted on the basis of the template in annex 7 to the tender specifications, the element to distinguish between a senior and a junior consultant shall be the number of years of relevant professional experience he/she possesses, with the threshold set as 5 (five) years’ experience. In the example provided in the cross table in annex 7 to the tender specifications, the first consultant (John Doe) may be considered as a senior consultant in FME and a junior consultant in Python. Depending on the requirements of each specific contract in terms of the tasks to be performed and the deliverables to be submitted, junior or senior expertise or a combination of both might be required. When placing an order for services, the Agency will assess the offer received against the information provided on the consultants’ technical expertise as specified in the cross table and in update CVs in order to determine the category of profiles by reference to the services requested.