Check eligibility and evidence — Consulting & professional services

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to build a sector evidence register and identify a blocking gap.

Common to all countries

Turn capability into verifiable evidence

Read each participation condition separately from the award criteria. A participation condition asks whether the bidder is eligible or capable; an award criterion compares admissible offers. A beautiful method statement does not repair a missing mandatory authorisation. Record the entity that must hold each credential, its scope, validity date and the moment at which it is required.

Build an evidence register with requirement, document, issuing body or owner, expiry, proposed bid location and responsible colleague. If relying on another entity, establish the permitted arrangement and obtain a real commitment. Remove confidential personal or client information that is not needed. Never replace a missing document with a claim that it will probably be available.

Worked example — Review a public service and transfer a method

This is a fictional teaching case. Quantities, prices and contractual conditions below are assumptions for the exercise, not legal requirements or market benchmarks.

Use comparable assignments with specific expert roles, methods and outcomes. Confirm availability of the proposed experts and disclose relevant conflicts through the prescribed process. A partner’s brand is not a substitute for an engaged delivery team.

Gap to resolve. The intended partner has not confirmed availability. Record the commitment as open, assign a deadline and plan a replacement or no-bid decision. An authentic document outside the relevant scope does not solve the gap.

Country specific — what to verify

Check conflict-of-interest and independence rules, professional licensing where the activity is regulated, confidentiality, data handling and ownership of outputs. Time-based and deliverable-based payment models create different evidence requirements; use the actual contract.

Regulated activities and recognized qualifications. Use the destination-country module and the actual tender pack. The sources below are references with their own scope; they do not form a single worldwide regime. For the general method, revisit the foundations.

Put it into practice

Create four evidence-register rows: relevant reference, team capability, regulatory evidence to verify and partner commitment. Include holder, validity, document and the action if it is missing.

Model answer

Use comparable assignments with specific expert roles, methods and outcomes. Confirm availability of the proposed experts and disclose relevant conflicts through the prescribed process. A partner’s brand is not a substitute for an engaged delivery team. The register must explicitly flag the uncommitted partner and unverified regulatory evidence. Neither a partner name nor a ticked box proves available capacity.

Keep this worksheet in your working file. The quiz below checks the lesson’s decisions; passing it is neither a professional qualification nor a guarantee of an award.