Digital Outcomes and Specialists will open for applications soon. When the procurement is live, the Government Digital Service (GDS) and the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) have to follow strict guidelines when answering questions from suppliers.
The clarification period
We expect Digital Outcomes and Specialists to open next week. Applicants can ask questions about the framework from its open date until 5pm GMT on 6 January 2015. These questions are referred to as ‘clarification questions’.
How to ask a clarification question
Suppliers must send any questions about Digital Outcomes and Specialists to CCS through their Digital Marketplace account. We can only respond to questions asked this way.
If you have any technical issues with your Digital Marketplace account, email us at enquiries@digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk
Sharing the answers
We’ll share each clarification question and response with all suppliers by posting them on the updates page in your Digital Marketplace account. We aim to group your questions and our responses into themes and publish them in batches twice a week and once a week over Christmas. Each update will include all previous questions and responses as well as new questions and responses. The supplier who asked the question won’t be identified.
We’ll notify anyone who has started an application when new clarification questions have been published.
Suppliers who register later on in the application process will be able to access all previous communications relating to Digital Outcomes and Specialists through their Digital Marketplace account.
Commercially sensitive clarification questions
Suppliers sometimes have questions that they don’t want us to publish the answer to. In this situation, you should let us know when you submit the question why you believe that making the question and response public would put you at a disadvantage.
If GDS and CCS don’t think that there’s sufficient justification for withholding the question and answer, we’ll ask you to decide if:
- the question and the response should in fact be published
- you want to withdraw the question
2 comments
Comment by Adam Green posted on
Grouping Q&A under themes is a great idea. Thanks guys. For comparison, the 200+ Excel s/s of G-Cloud queries is quite daunting.... I guess you might apply this to GC8 in due course?
Comment by Amy McNichol posted on
Hi Adam,
We'll be reviewing and comparing the ways we've dealt with clarification questions when the clarification period closes. We'll keep your feedback in mind, thank you!
Amy