John Walker via e-mail
[FOI #1690 email]
4 September 2008
Dear Mr Walker,
Request for Information - RFI20080868
Thank you for your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”) received on 12 August
2008 seeking the following information:
1. Details of the tendering procedures involved in selecting external training providers for your organisation
2. Details of how your organisation audits the integrity and value of courses run by external training providers
1. The BBC uses a preferred supplier database of external training suppliers. The tendering process for this
preferred supplier list (PSL) is carried out by BBC Procurement every 4 years. Details of current contracts
and their end dates are published on the BBC's external supplier web pages, which can be found at the
following link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/supplying/training.shtml
Invitations to tender (ITT) are sent out to:-
• Suppliers who respond to contract end information on bbc.co.uk
• Suppliers who have existing contracts
• Suppliers who have expressed an interest during the period of the existing contracts and who have
asked to be considered for inclusion in the PSL at the point of re-tender.
Returned ITTs are then evaluated by both Procurement and Training & Development who measure:-
• business need for the type of training offered
• quality of the offering
• organisational capabilities
• price
Those suppliers who are successful in their submissions are issued framework agreements and their details
are made widely available to BBC staff via the BBC intranet.
2. Training teams use a number of strategies to ensure the value of the courses they commission from
external training providers. The training department maintains a comprehensive set of evaluation data for
its portfolio of events and training teams regularly review this data for feedback to their courses. In many
cases, teams do not use external training providers to run whole programmes but use a combination of
internal trainers and freelance trainers to deliver their portfolio of courses. In all cases, a member of the
training team would meet with the individual prior to an offer of work and we would use the post event
evaluation data to ensure that s/he had delivered high quality and valuable work. On a regular basis, there
will also be a member of the team present during an event to monitor the quality of the supplier's work.
Further information on the BBC’s tendering process can be found at the following:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/supplying/index.shtml
I hope this response satisfies your request.
Your Appeal Rights:
If you are not satisfied with this response you have the right to an internal review by a BBC senior
manager. Please contact us at the following address: BBC Freedom of Information, Room 2252, White
City, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TS, explaining what you would like us to review and including your
reference number: If you are not satisfied with the internal review, you can appeal to the Information
Commissioner. The contact details are: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone 01625 545 700 or
see http://www.ico.gov.uk/
Yours sincerely
Mary Geoghegan
BBC People
