Guidance on how to deal with online bidding issued by CIC

CIC has issued a briefing note on online bidding, describing the process, listing advantages and disadvantages and giving recommendations about the use of this procurement process. This has been drafted and agreed by the CIC Online Bidding Response Group, with participation and endorsement from the Specialist Engineering Contractor’s Group.

CIC strongly believes that the process of online bidding is contrary to the Latham and Egan principles and goes against the recommendations of the Rethinking Construction and Accelerating Change Reports. However, the briefing note seeks to give guidance to firms regarding this process.

A key recommendation in the briefing note is that if online bidding is to be used, it should be used only for the supply of commodities, and not building design and engineering services or construction services.

The online bidding briefing note has been drafted and agreed by the CIC Online Bidding Response Group, with participation and endorsement from the Specialist Engineering Contractors’ Group.