How NEC tender bids are scored: what evaluators actually write down
Updated: Oct 30
By Roman Bazelchuk | NEC Accredited Project Manager | APMG Project Planning and Control
Founder, NEC Planning Solutions Ltd
An NEC tender bid is scored question by question on a fixed scale, often 0 to 5, and the quality marks go to what the evaluator can point to in the answer and write down as a reason. In seven construction-sector tenders that reached the courts, the winning margin ran from 0.01 to 3.43 points.
Most bid teams do not see the marking. They see a total, a rank and whatever feedback the authority gives, which can be thin. When a contractor challenges a public tender in court, the judge can see much more: the scoring scheme, the evaluators' notes and the record of moderation. The judgments quote them, and they are the closest a bid team can get to sitting in the evaluation room.
This guide reads four of those judgments, all on construction work or construction-related services, for what evaluators wrote about programmes, method statements and resources. It then sets out how close the scores run, what the assessment summary each assessed bidder now receives under the Procurement Act 2023 can tell you, and what I check in a tender programme before it goes in.
If the question is still whether a programme belongs in the bid at all, start with whether a tender programme is needed. This piece assumes it is in the bid, and asks how it is marked.
What evaluators wrote in four tenders that reached court
The four cases below turned on the evaluators' own words. Each quote is taken from the judgment, with its paragraph number, so a reader can check it.
York Street Interchange: one withheld mark and a quashed award
The York Street Interchange in Belfast was a road scheme of about £90 to £110 million, tendered on NEC3: a Professional Services Contract on Option E and two Engineering and Construction Contract elements on Options B and C. Quality carried 70% of the marks and price 30%, and each quality question was scored from 0 to 5.
The joint venture of BAM Civil and FP McCann scored 4 on the question about planning and executing the construction. The panel's debrief gave one reason for withholding the 5: "Lacks detail of component steps associated with activity phasing eg erection of bridge beams and parapets, completion of bridge widening" (paragraph 52). Its contract management answer was marked down too, on the indicator about managing change and giving early warning of compensation events, for "lack of understanding of unique nature of this contract eg value engineering not part of Phase 2" (Court of Appeal, paragraph 47).
The joint venture had the lower price and lost by 1.67 points, 91.89 against 93.56. Nobody disputed that one more quality mark would have put it first (paragraph 42). The High Court quashed the award, and the Court of Appeal upheld both grounds on which it found the award unlawful. On the phasing answer the judge drew a line every bid writer should know: an answer is expected to deal with "the main, essential or key steps of phasing", but "this does not mean that every possible step or action in the construction process has to be spelt out" (BAM Civil Ltd and FP McCann Ltd v Department for Infrastructure [2018] NIQB 68, paragraph 152, upheld in [2019] NICA 78).
The lesson runs both ways. A panel cannot expect every detail of a complex task when the question asks for an outline, and here that error cost the authority its award. But the bidder won that point only in court. The safer answer names the key steps, in sequence, for every element the question lists, with enough of the component steps that the panel has nothing to write against it, and the programme behind it shows the same steps as activities.
The NEC4 programme answer that scored 4, not 5
Northern Ireland's Pan Government Small Works Framework of 2024 asked a question every NEC4 planner will recognise. Bidders had to describe their processes to establish "a ... realistic NEC4 compliant programme for acceptance within two weeks of the starting date", to provide "an updated programme for acceptance at least every four weeks", and to "correct performance issues promptly" (paragraph 10). Quality carried 50% of the marks, price 40% and social value 10%.
Down Developments scored 4 out of 5. The panel's feedback read: "Very good response which would have benefitted with details of the procedures for providing the client/authority with updated programme for acceptance", with "additional details of correction of poor performance by their own team, subcontractors and members of the wider supply chain" (paragraph 13). On its quality assurance answer the panel wanted more detail on three of the five points, noting "a recurring reliance on their experience on existing frameworks rather than focus on the proposed processes" (paragraph 18).
It finished 3.31% behind the winner of lot 1, and full quality marks would have ranked it first (paragraph 7). The court found a prima facie case of manifest error and ordered the winners' answers and the panel's notes to be disclosed. It also noted that the feedback on the winners' answers to those two questions was a word-for-word copy of the indicators section of the scoring matrix (Down Developments Ltd v Department of Finance [2024] NIKB 98, paragraphs 23, 38 and 40). That was an interim decision, not a final finding on the scores.
Read as a planner, the feedback is precise. The panel did not want more about the programme itself. It wanted the procedure around it: who prepares each revision, when it is submitted, what it is checked against, and what happens when a subcontractor falls behind. Experience on another framework is not a procedure.
A method statement that left out part of the scope
Milton Keynes Council tendered an £8 million, four-year contract for asbestos removal and reinstatement services, weighted 60% on price and 40% on quality. The winner's method statement, limited to two A4 pages, scored 10 out of 10, yet the council's own evaluator accepted that it "did not address reinstatement works at all" (paragraph 48). The court called the score "incapable of rational explanation" and held that it "should have been a score of zero" (paragraphs 51 and 57).
The same bidder's mobilisation answer scored 6. The contract required 98% of the works in each month's task orders to be completed to programme, and the answer contained "no proposals" for meeting that target (paragraphs 61 and 62). The court took the 6 to 0. The challenger's own 8 on the method statement and 6 on mobilisation were left alone, the first as "very subjective tests" that "were a matter for the Council" and the second within its margin of appreciation (paragraphs 56 and 67). With the corrections made, the court declared the challenger's tender the most economically advantageous (Woods Building Services v Milton Keynes Council [2015] EWHC 2011 (TCC) and [2015] EWHC 2172 (TCC)).
The court did not re-mark answers it simply rated differently. It acted where something the contract required was missing, and took four of the winner's answers to zero, among them the method statement without the reinstatement works and the mobilisation answer with no plan for the programme target. It also corrected scores where the two bidders' answers had been marked unequally. Every requirement and every programme target in the specification needs a line in the answer that an evaluator can point to.
Resources you cannot field on every lot
Northern Ireland's Department for Regional Development tendered its asphalt resurfacing term contracts in lots, weighted 70% on price and 30% on quality, on the Infrastructure Conditions of Contract Term Version rather than NEC. The contract made the quality answers pre-contractual representations, and the Department itself said the answers on the delivery team and on plant looked forward to what each contractor "will have in place when the contract commences" (paragraphs 24 and 26). One rival took top marks on those answers in contracts it could not all have staffed. On its own organisation chart it "could provide site engineers for four Contracts at most" (paragraph 25), and it was ranked first in six. The High Court found a manifest error, and the Court of Appeal agreed (Northstone (NI) Ltd v Department for Regional Development [2020] NIQB 79, paragraph 87, affirmed in [2021] NICA 23, paragraph 122).
A programme carries the same promise. Its durations rest on the gangs and plant behind them, and a contractor bidding several lots with one site team needs to show how each lot is resourced if it wins them all.
How close the scores run
Seven construction-sector tenders that reached a judgment record the gap between the winner and the bidder who challenged, and what the court decided.
Case | What was tendered | Gap | What the court decided |
John Sisk & Son v Western Health and Social Care Trust [2014] NIQB 123 | A hospital | 0.01 points, 92.70 against 92.69 | A disclosure ruling only |
Amey Highways v West Sussex County Council [2018] EWHC 1976 (TCC) | A highways term service | 0.03 points | Interim rulings only, and the council later abandoned the procurement |
Northstone (NI) v Department for Regional Development [2020] NIQB 79 | Resurfacing, lot ARN1 | 0.07 of a percentage point | The challenge to this lot failed, and manifest errors were found in other lots |
Bechtel v HS2 [2021] EWHC 458 (TCC) | A station construction partner, NEC3 Option F | 1.62 points | No manifest error, and the claims failed |
BAM Civil and FP McCann v Department for Infrastructure [2018] NIQB 68 | A road interchange, NEC3 | 1.67 points | The award was quashed, upheld on appeal |
Down Developments v Department of Finance [2024] NIKB 98 | A small works framework, NEC4 programme question | 3.31% | A prima facie case of manifest error, and disclosure ordered |
Woods Building Services v Milton Keynes Council [2015] EWHC 2011 (TCC) | Asbestos removal and reinstatement services | 3.43% at award, 2.93% after the council's own correction | The decision was set aside and the challenger's tender declared the most economically advantageous |
Table 1: the gap between the winner and the bidder who challenged, in seven construction-sector tenders that reached a judgment
None was decided by more than 3.43 points. In York Street one more quality mark would have changed the winner, and in Down Developments full quality marks would have. Outside construction, Braceurself v NHS England turned on one question, where a single mark was worth 2.5% against a gap of 2.25%, although the Court of Appeal later held that the panel's concern on that question was valid ([2024] EWCA Civ 39).
The York Street figures show what the weighting does. The joint venture led on price by 6.44 points and trailed on quality by 8.11, so the quality answers decided it, and one more mark on a single quality question would have put it first.
For a bid team the arithmetic is plain. Quality points lost on one or two answers can outweigh a clear price lead, and in these cases the disputed marks sat on the programme, method, resource, contract management and quality assurance answers.
What I check in a tender programme before it goes in
A substantial number of projects have been won with tender programmes I built, in civil and M&E work. On one, the programme took full marks for its weighting. It had everything the question asked for, it was clear to follow and it made sense, and it came with a clearly presented narrative and a visual timeline. Before a programme goes into a bid, I check three things.
Is the critical path real, and does it make sense?
The critical path should run through the work that actually drives the job, in the order the method statement describes. A path that jumps between unrelated activities, or runs through a lag standing in for a missing step, tells an evaluator the logic was not built from the method. It is the test the York Street judge set for the phasing answer: the main, essential or key steps, in sequence.
Is it achievable, with every dependency in it?
Every activity on the path needs its predecessors, including the ones outside the contractor's control: access dates, the client's information, and other contractors' work. A path that is only achievable because a dependency was left out is what a clarification question tends to find.
Are planned Completion and the Completion Date shown apart?
The Completion Date is the contract date the work must be complete by, and it is the benchmark I track progress against. Planned Completion is the date the contractor plans to finish. Shown separately, progress can be measured against the contract date from the first update, and the terminal float between the two stays visible.
Each check maps onto a case above. York Street lost a mark for lacking detail of the component steps of phasing, and the court held the panel had asked for more than the outline the question sought. Down Developments lost one on the procedure for revisions and for correcting poor performance. In Woods, the winner's method statement should have scored nothing: it left out the reinstatement works and much else the specification asked for. In Northstone, a rival was marked as if it had resources it could not field. A tender programme that passes the three checks, with a narrative that explains it, gives the panel a reason it can write down for the top mark. Built this way, it is also most of the way to a programme the Project Manager can accept under clause 31 after award.
NEC Planning Solutions builds tender programmes to pass these three checks, with a narrative that explains them, as part of its tender programme support.
Tender programmes start from £1,500 plus VAT, or from £2,500 plus VAT with the narrative.
Reading your assessment summary
Since 24 February 2025, a contract awarded after a competitive tendering procedure under the Procurement Act 2023 comes with an assessment summary for every supplier whose tender was assessed, sent before the contract award notice (section 50). The Procurement Regulations 2024 set out what it contains: your score for each award criterion, with "an explanation for that score by reference to relevant information in the tender", and the total. If you lost, you also receive the winning tender's scores, each with its explanation, and "any further explanation of why the public contract is not being awarded" to you (regulation 31).
Two limits matter. The authority does not have to compare the two tenders directly, and it does not have to publish the summaries. And for most contracts the contract award notice starts a standstill period of eight working days (section 51), though a call-off under a framework has none unless the authority sets one voluntarily, so the summary needs reading the day it arrives.
Read it the way the Down Developments feedback reads. Put four things side by side: the question with its numbered sub-points, the descriptor for the next band up, the panel's explanation, and your answer. In Down Developments, the explanation named the sub-points the panel wanted more on. Then keep a log across bids. A gap that appears twice is worth fixing in the template, not in the next tender.
Early cases under the Act show the summaries, and the records behind them, being tested. In Parkingeye v Velindre University NHS Trust the authorities found an error in an assessment summary they had issued and sent revised ones ([2026] EWHC 1019 (TCC), paragraph 49). In Prime Way Care v Southwark the court was concerned that typed moderation minutes contained comments the handwritten notes did not ([2026] EWHC 1845 (TCC), paragraph 35). Neither was a construction tender, and neither decided whether the scores were right.
What the Procurement Act 2023 changed for tender evaluation
New public procurements in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have run under the Procurement Act 2023 since 24 February 2025, and procurements started before then stay under the old regulations. Most of what a bid team does is unchanged. Table 2 sets out what did change for tender evaluation.
What changed | Where | What it means for the bid |
The award test is the most advantageous tender | Section 19 | Government guidance says this is not a change in policy, and price need not take precedence |
Each assessed bidder gets an assessment summary after a competitive tendering procedure | Section 50 and regulation 31 | Your scores with reasons, and the winner's scores with reasons if you lost |
At least three KPIs on contracts over £5 million, unless performance cannot be assessed that way | Sections 52 and 71 | Performance is assessed at least every 12 months and published in contract performance notices, required since 1 January 2026. Frameworks are excluded, but call-offs over £5 million are covered |
A minimum social value weighting in central government | PPN 002 and PPN 026 | At least 10% of the total score now, and at least 20% on contracts of £5 million or more in procurements started from 1 January 2027 |
Table 2: what the Procurement Act 2023 changed for tender evaluation
The social value rules are set out in what a social value commitment has to survive under PPN 026.
The author's view
In my view the programme answer is where a bid shows whether the method was actually planned. A critical path that is real and achievable, every dependency in it, planned Completion shown apart from the Completion Date: an evaluator can check all of that in minutes, and a panel can write it down as the reason for a top mark.
The judgments show how few points decide a tender, and that the disputes turned on what an answer left out, or what a panel wrongly expected it to include, rather than on a weak idea. Those points are easier to win on the programme than on the price.
How NEC tender bids are scored: frequently asked questions
How are NEC tender bids scored?
Each quality question is scored on a fixed scale, often 0 to 5, against written descriptors, then weighted and added to the price score. In the four cases above, quality carried between 30% and 70% of the marks. The reasons the evaluators record matter as much as the scores: they are what the assessment summary, and if it comes to it a court, will read.
What separates a 4 from a 5 on a programme answer?
In the published cases, the panel's reason was detail it wanted and did not find: the component steps of phasing at York Street, though the court held that asked for more than an outline, and the procedure for updated programmes at Down Developments. A top answer takes every sub-point in turn: who does it, when, with what, and what happens when it slips.
What is an assessment summary under the Procurement Act 2023?
It records how your tender was scored, and goes to each assessed bidder after a competitive tendering procedure, before the contract award notice. It gives your score for each award criterion with an explanation tied to your tender and, if you lost, the winning tender's scores with their explanations. It need not be published or compare the two directly, and the standstill is usually eight working days.
How close are tender scores in practice?
Close. In seven construction-sector tenders that reached a judgment, the gap between the winner and the bidder who challenged ran from 0.01 to 3.43 points. At York Street one more quality mark would have changed the winner, and in Down Developments full quality marks would have. On a scale of 0 to 5, one band on one heavily weighted question can be the whole margin.
About the author
Roman Bazelchuk is the Founder of NEC Planning Solutions Ltd, a UK project planning and controls consultancy supporting contractors with NEC programme compliance, compensation event assessments and live project controls. He is an NEC Accredited Project Manager and holds the APMG Project Planning and Control qualification, with a BEng in Mechanical Engineering and postgraduate training in Planning and Control.
NEC Planning Solutions provides contract-aware planning support through a QA-governed delivery model, helping project teams keep programmes accepted, current and commercially useful from tender through to live delivery.
Arrange a consultation
Losing NEC tenders on quality despite competitive prices? We will find the parts of the bid that assert capability rather than evidence it. The first consultation is 30 minutes with Roman Bazelchuk, Director, confidential, with no documents needed in advance. Email info@necplanningsolutions.co.uk or call 0330 223 7709. Our tender programme support is set out here.
