Wording for selection criteria: be specific!

Through this Judgment No. 231.051 of 29 April 2015, the Council of State suspended the execution of the decision made by the National Bank of Belgium on 20 March 2015 on the public services contract for consumer telephone surveys.

In this matter, one of the requirements announced with regard to the qualitative selection of candidates in the special specifications was worded as follows: “staff member appearing on the company’s organisational chart: the company must have sufficient numbers of permanent staff to ensure the continuity and quality of the task”.

In this matter, the offer by the claimant included 1 Dutch-speaking permanent employee and 4 French speakers. The opposing party rejected the offer by this contractor as it considered that the company had not demonstrated that it had the ability to conduct surveys in the two main languages of the country.

The claimant argued that the opposing party had breached Article 5 of the Law of 15 June 2006 on public contracts and certain contracts for works, supplies and services, and in particular the obligation of transparency. The opposing party had not in fact clearly indicated the qualitative selection criteria by failing to specify what should be understood as “sufficient numbers of” permanent staff that the candidate had to have.

The Council of State concluded, having examined the case in extreme urgency, that it ensues from analysis of the arguments that the obligation of transparency stipulated by Article 5 of the aforementioned Law of 15 June 2006 had not been adhered to when defining the qualitative selection criteria.

We can only advise contracting authorities to be particularly specific when wording award selection criteria.