The most economically advantageous tender (MEAT) criterion enables the contracting authority to take account of criteria that reflect qualitative, technical and sustainable aspects of the tender submission as well as price when reaching an award decision.
As early as possible in the process, preferably when the requirement is advertised in the OJEU, the criteria will be published and advised to the potential tenderers.
The relative weighting of each criterion used to assess the submissions must be stated or, where this is not possible, they should be stated in descending order of importance. Where the relative weightings are not stated, the contracting authority will have to provide reasons justifying failure to provide the weighting information.
Note: Quite often the award criteria stated in the contract notice and/or the tender documentation will be made up of a number of sub-criteria. These sub-criteria and their weightings should also be notified to the tenderers - the sub-criteria detail could probably be provided within the tender documentation rather than in the contract notice.
Where it is not possible to weight the criteria, they must be stated in descending order of importance and an explanation provided of why it has not been possible to weight them. The legislation lists the following criteria:
- quality
- price
- technical merit
- aesthetic and functional characteristics
- environmental characteristics
- running costs
- cost-effectiveness
- after-sales service and technical assistance
- delivery date and delivery period or period of completion.
Sustainability-based criteria may also be taken into consideration when making the award decision.
The contract notice must indicate that the MEAT criterion will be used to award the contract otherwise the implication is that lowest price will be applied.
The details of the individual award criteria should be stated in the contract notice and must be stated in the contract documentation.
Once stated, the criteria must be applied as stated and cannot be changed later.
Tagging this document or page with a word will add that word to the search terms for finding this page
You can use the above rating system to highlight how useful this content was to you
Comments