The Association of North East Councils Trading as the North East Procurement Organisation (NEPO) Is seeking tenders for water retail services. At the time of submitting an SQ, and throughout the life of the framework agreement, tenderers must hold a valid Water Supply and Sewerage Licence with the appropriate retail authorisation, as issued by Ofwat. Also included within the scope of the framework agreement is the provision of automatic meter Reading and associated services and systems. The framework agreement will also include provisions for assisting in the reduction of consumption and supporting users efficiency schemes.

NEPO are using a 2-stage, restricted procedure for this framework agreement. The first is a selection questionnaire which will be used to shortlist organisations. It should be noted that one of the key mandatory criteria at selection questionnaire stage is for organisations to hold a relevant water supply and sewerage licences with the appropriate retail authorisation, as issued by Ofwat. Shortlisted organisations will then be invited to tender in January 2020. The selection questionnaire document also contains an ITT overview that sets out the high-level requirements of the framework agreement. This document will allow organisations to determine if they are interested in this opportunity and consider whether they have the required capability and capacity to deliver the framework agreement prior to submitting a selection questionnaire.

The framework contract will be a sole supplier framework contract with one lot. Those organisations shorlisted from the selection questionnaire and invited to tender will be evaluated in accordance withe award criteria contained within the invitation to tender documents.

The opportunity can be accessed via the NEPO eTender system. Suppliers wishing to be considered for this contract must register their expression of interest and submit a tender through the NEPO eTender System. If not already registered, candidates should register on the NEPO eTender system at https://procontract.due-north.com/register. Tenders must be submitted using the link above. Tenders submitted via post or email methods will not be accepted. If you require time-critical assistance on submitting your tender please contact the system support team on 0330 0050352. For non time-critical issues, such as passwords, general account queries and location of information etc, please contact Proactis Supplier Support Helpdesk Ticketing System (http://proactis.kayako.com/) and select ProContract V3 support. You will then need to log in or submit a ticket to register your issue. Alternatively, you can email ProContractSuppliers@proactis.com. This will automatically log a support ticket on the Proactics Supplier Support Helpdesk.

NEPO does not give any guarantee and/or warrant the actual value of goods (if any) which will be placed with the successful supplier by any contracting authority using the framework contract persuant to this process and accepts no liability there of.