If you are a couple of rounds into a drink, in the last chance saloon, using the free WiFi and your laptop to complete a CDS Procurement Bid please remember; it is time gentlemen please at 4pm tomorrow.

If I hear the words "just one more thing" again today I will scream.

Everything changes - as the Arctic Monkeys told us .

In our current world it means that the phone stops ringing off the cradle and we can get some "physical" work done on virtual bids. If we sound brusk and impatient on the phones at present please accept our apologies - we are just trying to get through as many as we can in the quickest possible time.

The old Marton Office is once again a hub of post sundown activity with the, now close to being pensioned off, original, dome based, iMac providing the soundtrack.

I have recently listened to

Lots of Miles Davis (esp Doo-Bop)
Lots of Belle & Sebastian (esp Life's Pursuit)
Weller - just loads of the rarity stuff
Corrine - because she is back
Plus a couple of long spells of "shuffle"

Just put on an Alan Jackson LP called "like red on a rose" which I chanced across on Bob Harris Country ages ago. It was produced by Alison Krauss and is wonderful. I got it for a pittance on i Tunes but it is now a tenner - worth it for late night workers.

Stick with us normal service will begin on Monday.

We are getting close to the closure of the Crime bid window. You do not want to get your head stuck, in a large sash window, silent movie style scene.

You MUST "publish" both the PQQ and the ITT, the latter of which must contain a TIF and should have attached a supervisor checklist (although if you are committing to have a supervisor by June 15th this is not strictly necessary).

When you have done this check that both have the title of this post in the "response status" column at MY PQQs and MY ITTs.

Head stuffed down the e-portal, someone constantly flushing the chain, no time to blog. No time to answer e-mail enquiries but you can try the lottery that is the phone if you like.

It wont be "thank Crunchie its Friday" I say at 4pm in 4 days time

Best version I could find in a hurry - apposite!

You will have guessed that I have little time to blog – made worse by another WiFi disaster tonight – this time at my hotel. A Webinar attendee suggests a Tips post however this would be impossible for us to do right now – simply where to start being another stumbling block. So here I shamelessly post his first suggestions (I will name and thank him if he agrees to going public). Please add in the comments box.

Once registered -

*Place the link on your desktop so that you do not have to continue to navigate to the submissions page

*That you need to go to the general PQQ link first and once you have indicated that you wish to show interest then the system will have automatically created your own PQQ ( or ITT) and therefore the next time you enter the system you go to Mr own PQQ or ITT link.

* Remind people that they can print of the PQQ and ITT Application form before filling anything in - so as to peruse it first. (But not after clicking on [response])

* That when you start to complete the information you will need to scroll down a couple of pages before you get the first line of input

* When you start to complete the data remember to constantly save the information ( in case the system times you out) and that the Save button is on the last page of the input form ( Control End) - which is a bit of a pain

* Once saved the system takes you right back up to the top of the application form, and not the last point that you inputted data - real pain again.

Oh no it isn't. Inappropriately named Bravo Solutions cost me £50 today as their crap, clunky software made me run out of parking cover. Will this procurement round never be over?

And in the middle of all this chaos;

A New Vision for Legal AId Delivery

God knows what, "In The Thick of It" style, machinations took place but what a time to make the announcement and (force?) the Chief Exec to resign.

Back to ITTs for me.

HAT TIP

Nigel

You should be checking the Q&A documents as they expand and mutate. Question 12, or rather the answer, is important. Bids need to be sent from a login in a Partner's (or member of "key personnel in e-portalese) name.

You would not find out from the LSC website, rather from an advert in the Gazette, that tendering in "low volume" categories - Clinical Negligence, Actions against the Police etc. will open after Crime on March 12th.

That aside, no time to stop.

The Family and SWL tendering round has opened, unfortunately not at 4pm when I was with clients eager to get all their bids finalised in one session.

There is now a bewildering array of ITTs (some 120 or more) for all the differing Procurement Areas. The key element is the Tender Information Form which contains all the essential supervisory requirements and also the scoring questions. Also there is NOT, as predicted on the basis of the Immigration round, a "commercial response" section of the ITT. So there is only the technical ITT response to complete and upload to.

This will be the focus of the next Webinar on 12th March, so civil firms wanting a shove in the right direction this is the course for you.

Steve asks essentially this question in the comments below which received the following response in the Mental Health Q&A;

100.1 On the ITT form at section 11, question 4 refers to organisations with limited liability, however there appears to be no appropriate response where an organisation is neither a charity or has limited liability (eg sole practitioner or partnership). Please advise.

Unfortunately, the answer to this question should have also made reference to organisations without limited liability (in addition to charities). Rather than making a change to the ITTs, organisations that do not have limited liability should select the answer option ‘No –registered charity’.

This is of course a cruelly ironic statement about the nature of much Legal Aid work.