Tender Evaluation Methodologies: Scoring Price Against Quality

The Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) approach is the preferred basis for award under S.I. 284/2016 for most contract types. MEAT allows contracting authorities to weigh price against quality, technical merit, environmental characteristics, after-sales service and other factors linked to the subject matter of the contract. Lowest price alone remains lawful but should only be used where the contract is fully specified and price is the only genuinely differentiating factor.

The fundamental principle of MEAT evaluation is that all criteria must be linked to the subject matter of the contract. A criterion that rewards tenderers for general company reputation rather than the specific approach proposed for this contract will not survive challenge.

Price scoring should use a formula that rewards genuine price differentiation. The most common formula is: Price Score = (Lowest Tendered Price / Tender Price) × Maximum Price Score. This normalises prices relative to the lowest tender. A common alternative is a fixed price model where all responsive tenders receive the same price score — appropriate where the specification is sufficiently detailed that price variation is minimal.

The weighting given to price should reflect the nature of the procurement. For straightforward commodity procurements, price may carry 60–70%. For complex professional services or technical design contracts, quality criteria may carry 70–80%, with price at 20–30%. The weighting must be stated in the tender documents and applied consistently.

Quality criteria should be as specific as possible. Vague criteria such as 'quality of methodology' invite inconsistent evaluation and challenge. Break quality into sub-criteria with defined scoring scales: for example, a methodology question might have a 0–20 scale with defined characteristics for each score band (0 = no methodology described; 5 = basic outline; 10 = adequate but generic; 15 = well-developed and project-specific; 20 = outstanding, demonstrating clear understanding of the specific challenges).

Individual evaluator scores should be recorded on standard scoring sheets before the moderation meeting. At moderation, each evaluator briefly explains their score, and a consensus score is agreed (not simply averaged). The moderation discussion should be minuted. This process produces a defensible quality evaluation and identifies outlier scores that may indicate misunderstanding of the criteria.

Before finalising results, the evaluation chair should check: that scores were applied consistently across tenderers for each criterion; that no criterion was applied differently to different tenderers; that all evaluators completed their conflict of interest declarations; and that the overall ranking aligns with the qualitative assessment of each tender. Any anomaly should be investigated and documented before the award recommendation is signed.

The ranked result must be communicated to all tenderers at the same time. The award decision notice must include the scores awarded to the unsuccessful tenderers and a comparison with the winning tender. GovIQ generates the award decision notice from the evaluation record, ensuring that the required comparative information is included automatically.