Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection
Student Grant Application System: Discussion with SUSI
11:50 am
Ms Kay Cullinane:
I will take that question. It was a European tender under a process called competitive dialogue. That is a process whereby a tender is put out across Europe and companies are invited to express their interest in providing the service requested, namely, the contact centre and document management. We received a number of expressions of interest. They were evaluated and five were invited to proceed to the next stage in the competitive dialogue process. That involves meeting with the companies to discuss the issues around the process to allow them get a sense of what is required in terms of the service we wish them to provide. It was a lengthy process. A number of different specialists and consultants were brought in to help deliberate on the process. We would have evaluated across costs, quality, previous experience, and capacity of the company to provide the service. That would have been evaluated and the final contract awarded.
No comments