Websites · 6 min read
Your tender paperwork says one thing. Your website says nothing.
The checklist assessors run through on your site before you're even shortlisted.
The short answer
A procurement framework website checklist should cover accreditations with dates, insurance levels, downloadable policies, project evidence with sector and value, social value commitments, and accessibility. Assessors check your website during due diligence, and missing documents create doubt at exactly the wrong moment.
By Raja Wahab, Co-founder, Fixby Studios · Published · Updated · 6 min read
Why your website matters more than it used to
Social value and compliance now carry real weight in public sector scoring. Assessors will search your business before the shortlisting meeting, and a site that can't evidence what your bid claims is a problem you never get told about.
This catches out otherwise strong bidders. The paperwork submitted with the tender says one thing, and the public website says nothing at all, which looks inconsistent even when the business genuinely holds every accreditation it claims.
The procurement framework website checklist
- Accreditations with certificate numbers and expiry dates.
- Insurance levels: public liability, employers' liability, professional indemnity.
- Downloadable policies: health and safety, environmental, quality, modern slavery, equality and diversity, data protection.
- Project evidence by sector, with contract value and duration.
- Social value: local employment, apprenticeships, community work, stated with real numbers.
- Accessibility to WCAG 2.2 AA, since public bodies must consider it when procuring.
- Company details, registered address and company number in the footer.
Make it easy for an assessor to verify
Put all of it on one 'Compliance' or 'Accreditations' page and link it from your footer. Bid teams should be able to send a single URL rather than assemble a folder of PDFs for every tender they respond to.
Keep the page current. An accreditation that expired six months ago and is still listed as valid does more damage than not mentioning it at all, because it suggests nobody is maintaining the detail behind your bids.
Scattered PDFs per tender
- — Assembled fresh each time
- — Easy to send an outdated file
- — Slows the bid team down
One compliance page
- — Accreditations and policies in one place
- — Linked from the footer
- — One URL for every bid
“Assessors look you up online before shortlisting, not after.”
What happens if it's missing
Nobody emails to ask where your insurance certificate is. The assessor simply marks it as unverifiable and moves to the next supplier. Treat your website as part of the bid document, not separate from it.
Sources
Your questions
- What should a procurement framework website checklist include?
- Accreditations with dates, insurance levels, downloadable policies, sector-specific project evidence with values, social value commitments, and accessibility to WCAG 2.2 AA.
- Do assessors really check a supplier's website?
- Yes. Due diligence routinely includes checking a supplier's public website and policies against what's claimed in the bid, often before any scoring call takes place.
- Where should this information live on the site?
- On a single compliance or accreditations page linked from the footer, so a bid team can share one link instead of emailing documents individually.
Raja Wahab is co-founder of Fixby Studios, a Huddersfield studio building websites, SEO, social media and business software for small, owner-managed businesses across West Yorkshire.
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