An illustrative city’s procurement journey

The steps and suggestions in this example are for illustrative purposes only. They are not exhaustive and may vary depending on your local circumstances, specific requirements and applicable regulations.
 

This guideline proposes an illustrative journey for cities using the procurement guidelines and templates as part of procurement processes. “Europolis” is a fictional city in which the city team utilises the procurement templates available and consults different guidelines during the procurement process associated with developing a Local Digital Platform.

What are Local Digital Platforms and Twins The city of Europolis is in the process of implementing a Local Digital Twin. As part of its digitalisation strategy, the city aims to specifically implement a Local Digital Platform to integrate public services, improve data sharing, and enhance citizen engagement. City team: By consulting the Guideline Identifying the appropriate user profile, Europolis puts together a small multidisciplinary team to develop the procurement process involving the needed technical, legal, and operational expertise. The team includes: The department head, specifically the Smart City Unit Coordinator, who is responsible for the visioning and supervising of all the sections of the templates to align the procurement with the city's digital transformation strategy. Thematic experts, including the Procurement Officer responsible for overseeing the procurement process and ensuring compliance with EU legal frameworks; the IT Specialist, who will be involved in defining the technical specifications and ensuring interoperability with existing systems; the City’s Data Protection Officer, who will participate in the procurement to verify compliance with GDPR and cybersecurity regulations; and the Financial & Budget Analyst, who will assess budget implications, funding opportunities and cost-effectiveness of the procurement.

Procurement process

The procurement process is structured using three key steps: the first focuses on the preparatory activities of the procurement process; the second details the actual launch of the procurement process; and the final step involves the finalisation of the procurement process. The city team utilises the procurement templates and consults the procurement guidelines available across different procurement phases to carry out the acquisition process effectively.

Step 1: Preparation activities

1. Identifying the procurement need and planning the procurement process

To start the procurement process, the Europolis’ Smart City Unit identifies a specific object required to be procured to enable the full implementation of an LDT. For this, the team follows the steps described in the Guideline Guidance on selection of objects of procurement and templates.

Specifically, Europolis:

• Assesses the city's digital and technical maturity: the team evaluates the current state of the community's digital infrastructure, identifying strengths and gaps.
• Defines the digital transformation roadmap: based on the digital maturity assessment, a digitalisation roadmap is drafted, detailing the strategy objectives and the key technical capabilities that need to be put in place to enable the adoption of an LDT.
• Identifies the procurement object: this roadmap serves as a guide for the city team to identify what necessary assets and services they need to acquire to carry out the transformation journey. Europolis determines the need for a User-Facing Local Digital Platform.

Having defined the procurement object to be acquired, the city team consults the Innovation Procurement guideline to adequately and strategically plan the procurement process. For this, the city can decide to implement certain strategic actions to enable innovative solutions, such as:

• The procurement needs in terms of the desired outcomes to be achieved by the city. For instance, instead of identifying the procurement need as "Implementing a platform with real-time data visualisation dashboards”, it can be defined as "Providing city staff and the public with easily accessible information on key city performance indicators."
• Considering conducting a pre-market consultation if needed, to define the procurement requirements based on realistic views according to available technologies, market trends and existing innovative solutions.

2. Selecting the right procurement template

The city’s procurement officer chooses either the publicly available Procurement Support Materials on the Living-in.EU platform (open-access platform); or the Online Procurement Helpdesk for Smart Communities (if the city is enrolled in the project).

The city officer selects the Local Digital Platform from the list of possible objects.

To identify the right template, the city consults the guideline Guidance on selection of objects of procurement and templates, which provides instructions on how to select the appropriate procurement templates.

After identifying the Local Digital Platform, the city officer downloads the relevant procurement template, including:

• The Tender Specifications document(see more details below)
• The Technical Specifications document (see more details below)
• The Price List file (see more details below)

3. Funding and financing

The Financial and Budget analyst of the city, as part of the responsibility to plan and secure funding for the procurement process that is being prepared, consults the Guideline Guidance on EU support and finance. In this guideline, the analyst identifies relevant information on how to access EU funds and support to effectively procure the Local Digital Platform.

Step 2: Procurement launch

4. Customising the key sections of the Tender and Technical Specification documents

Before starting to work on customising the templates for their own use, the Europolis team uses the Guideline Criteria and considerations to use the templates to verify the suitability of the selected template and to understand the extent to which they need to customise the documents.

After understanding the customisation scope and criteria, the Europolis team tailors the Tender and Technical Specifications based on the city's specific needs. Consulting the Guideline How to use the templates and guidelines, the city team finds general relevant information related to the editing of both documents, which provides support across the entire process of customisation of the documents.

4.1 Tender Specifications key sections

First, the city team focuses on customising the Tender Specifications document sections related to:

1. Tender Documents, requests for clarification and communication
2. Scope and description of the procurement, which defines the subject of the contract, its nature, and implementation, among other relevant information.

Consulting the Guideline The EU Legal framework on public procurement, the Europolis team is then able to edit the Tender Specifications document sections regarding:

1. General Tendering information, including the legal basis of the procurement, the definition of entities subject to restrictive measures and rules on access to procurement, the registration in the tender register, the requests to participate and tender submission methods.
2. Form and content of the submission, specifically regarding the form and content of the submissions, confidentiality clauses, code of conduct, access to the records, settlement of disputes, and personal data protection notice.

Finally, the city teams customise the Evaluation and Award Criteria section in parallel to the customisation of the Technical Specifications Annex.

For this, the Guideline Effective procurement evaluation processes and negotiations to correctly edit the sections of the related template is consulted. In this section, the city focuses on carefully tailoring the following:

• Selection criteria, which determine the eligibility of potential bidders to participate in the tender process. The city ensures these criteria are clear, objective, non-discriminatory, and aligned to the city's context and needs.
  
  This might include financial standing, technical capabilities, relevant experience, and, importantly, considerations related to social objectives and sustainability as outlined in Guideline “Procurement initiatives and criteria for achieving sustainability and social goals”32. For example, the city might include criteria related to the bidder's commitment to fair labour practices, environmental sustainability, or social inclusion.
   
• Award criteria, which specifically regard the technical quality assessment criteria for bids evaluation. The city focuses on tailoring the proposed criteria according to their customisation of the technical and functional requirements outlined in the Technical Specifications document (Annex 7).

Furthermore, the city might integrate criteria related to social objectives and sustainability within the technical quality assessment, following Guideline Procurement initiatives and criteria for achieving sustainability and social goals. For instance, this can include evaluating the platform's accessibility features or its environmental impact in terms of energy efficiency.

4.2 Technical Specifications key sections

To tailor the Technical Specifications document to their specific needs, the Europolis team follows the Guideline Technical specifications interpretation and tailoring, together with the Guidelines How to use the templates and guidelines and Criteria and considerations to use the templates to correctly tailor the different sections.

First, in alignment with the content of the Tender Specifications document, the team customises the sections related to the General Background, Definitions, and Object of the Tender.

Subsequently, the city teams revise and further tailor the sections Compliance, Warranty, Contract Terms, as well as the section regarding Applicable Law, in alignment with the guidance provided by Guidelines The EU legal framework on public procurement and The EU legal framework on digital products and services relevant to LDTs.

Finally, the team focuses on customising the document’s pre-defined Technical and Functional Requirements of the Local Digital Platform to further align them with the city’s needs.

• For this, the team utilises the Guideline Technical specifications interpretation and tailoringto help translate the identified procurement needs into concrete technical and functional requirements, enabling Europolis to fine-tune the predefined requirements according to their needs.
• With this, Europolis will seek to ensure the Local Digital Platform is interoperable with other systems and ensures seamless data exchange by requesting bidders to demonstrate compliance with a predefined set of Minimum Interoperability Mechanisms (MIM Plus). To strengthen this, the city team can utilise the resources provided by the Guideline Compliance with MIMs, standards, specifications, and certificationsto incorporate other relevant MIMs and request certain industry standards and certifications for the platform to meet (e.g. regarding data security, privacy, and accessibility).
• Additionally, if the city is considering incorporating Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) capabilities into the digital platform, the Guideline Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learningcan prove to be very useful in identifying the specific added value of AI/ML integrated tools and lay down specific requirements for these components, including legal compliance to EU Frameworks in alignment with the Guideline The EU legal framework on digital products and services relevant to LDTs.

4.3 Price List spreadsheet document

The price list is an Excel file and is a standardised format which cities can ask the tenderers to fill out with their financial offers related to the solutions. This document includes pre-defined fields and categories, such as item descriptions, quantities, unit prices, and any other relevant terms that the tenderers must fill in. If needed, the city team can tailor the available fields based on their needs.

In this context, the price list will help the city’s evaluating committee to assess the financial aspects of each bid, enabling correct evaluation of the different offers received from various tenderers.

5. Market engagement (optional)

Before finalising the tailoring of the tender documents, the city of Europolis can undergo a process of market engagement to gain an understanding of the available solutions, potential suppliers, and current market trends. This can contribute to informing the refinement of technical specifications and, in parallel, to attracting competitive bids. For this, the city team can find guidance on the Innovation procurement and Information on how to encourage participation of SMEs guidelines.

Step 3: Finalisation of the procurement process

6. Publishing the tender

After receiving internal approval, the Europolis team submits the tender to the national procurement portal. With this, the tender is officially registered and made available for review by potential suppliers. The submission process follows local, national and European standard procedures.

7. Evaluating and awarding the contract

Finally, Europolis follows the Guideline Effective procurement evaluation processes and negotiations to evaluate bids. This guideline helps them assess proposals, ensuring that all bids are reviewed based on set criteria and defining clear and objective criteria for evaluation using a structured scoring system. Subsequently, the guideline also provides a clear framework for negotiations and focuses on the risks associated with each considered proposal, ultimately selecting the best offer based on overall value to help Europolis make informed decisions.

8. Contractualisation and quality assurance

After awarding the contract, Europolis proceeds with the contract negotiations and signing with the awarded supplier, having as a support for this process the Guideline Conditionalities Definition, Contractualisation and Quality Assurance.

Once the contract enters into execution, the Europolis team will utilise the mentioned guideline also to implement certain contract management practices to monitor supplier performance and ensure the quality of the provided Local Digital Platform.