Procurement of special items and services

Medical procurement

Read more about medical procurement here.

Consultancy services procurement

In the British Red Cross, this is currently not managed by logisticians, although this is under discussion as it technically is a procurement process – contact international HR for details on the process to recruit consultants.

A process flowchart is available from international HR for more details on consultancy services procurement.

Facilities rental services procurement

The needs definition phase should focus on:

Seek recommendations from peer organisations or rental agencies, with options compared in a CBAComparative Bid Analysis format.

The CBA and the recommendation should then be approved by a budget holder, procurement manager and finance manager, with the security focal point included for information.

Negotiations with selected supplier or service provider should ensue.

Negotiation points should confirm:

Due diligence must be carried out before the contract is issued to the supplier or service provider.

Rental invoices should be sent directly to the finance team (or SSCShared Services Centre in British Red Cross UK) for payment with a copy of the rental contract.

Facilities management in the UK

In the UK, the facilities team at SSCShared Services Centre will support the selection and contracting process. The facilities team should receive invoices for all property rentals and process property-related payments directly.

SSC holds a framework agreement covering maintenance and services to property rented by the British Red Cross. Service requests must be placed through SSC’s support desk, who liaise with the facilities management company and allocate a level of urgency to every request.

Requestors of building services will be informed of the timeline for service delivery directly. More information on the facilities team and their support can be found on Redroom.

There is a requirement for the British Red Cross to have specific documents available on British Red Cross-run sites at all times, in a “statutory documents folder”. More information about the statutory documents folder can be found on Redroom.

Selection criteria for rental premises

In general

Given the status of PNSPartner National Society in country (working for the IFRCInternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and not having legal authority in country), whenever considering property rentals, make sure the legal authority in country is involved in the process and kept informed at all stages.

The lease agreement must eventually be signed by the legal authority in country.

Warehouse selection

See the Building a stock strategy and Sourcing a warehouse sections of the Warehousing chapter.

Accommodation

As a rule, prioritise secure facilities such as an apartment, house or other fully self-contained area, or containers or prefabricated buildings in a compound. Considerations listed in the In general section apply.

Office space

Where the British Red Cross works in partnerships, it is usually possible to be hosted by either the NSNational Society, the IFRCInternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies or the ICRCInternational Committee of the Red Cross, following the terms of an integration or service agreement (IA). The use of office equipment is usually provided on either a free or cost-sharing basis, or as part of the service/integration agreement.

Sharing premises within the Movement

As a PNSPartner National Society, it is usually not possible to acquire land or property in a country other than the PNS’s own; however, where relevant, a business case should be put together to provide a costs-benefit analysis to compare acquisition and rental options. A PNS willing to rent premises outside their own country would have to go through the HNSHost National Society or IFRCInternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to rent spaces for them.

If renting space from the IFRC, service charges must be defined as part of the integration agreement or through a separate agreement.

See the Policy and Procedure for Provision of Integration and Administrative Services for National Societies from the IFRC for more details on integration and service agreements.

If renting space from the HNS, service charges can either be defined in the GADGrant Agreement Document or agreed locally.

Any examination of a new site should use the NSNational Society security audit checklist and ideally be carried out by a security adviser from the IFRC.

Clearing and forwarding services procurement

Read about the procurement of clearing and forwarding services here.

Procurement to support cash programme delivery

For more details and useful resources about cash programming, refer to the British Red Cross Cash Hub.

The Cash Hub platform, hosted by the British Red Cross as a shared leadership initiative with International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent SocietiesIFRCInternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and ICRCInternational Committee of the Red Cross, has been launched as a global resource for the Movement to help increase the Movement’s capacity to deliver cash assistance. All templates referred to in this section are available on the Cash Hub via the search function, mostly from the Cash and logistics section.

Visit the Cash Hub here and join the online cash community of the Movement: the platform offers support to expand our knowledge, skills and networks in different ways, such as searching through a range of resources, training opportunities, programme guidance and tools, or accessing interactive cash maps with key data on cash programmes.

The vast majority of cash programmes will require tendering for financial services and/or voucher services. The requirements for cash services must be defined by the programme team, using the scope of work template and the response sheet as a reference. Note that there are separate response sheet templates to use for FSPFinancial Service Provider procurement and voucher vendors procurement. Using these resources will ensure that you collect the minimum information necessary to ensure the tender is successful.

The modalities of cash distributions must be defined in a supply chain strategy and associated services must be captured in a procurement plan, so they can be sourced, contracted and monitored by procurement experts with consultation of finance and programme experts.

Cash services providers must be evaluated jointly by programme, finance and logistics, through a tender process or a simple CBAComparative Bid Analysis.

The most common services that cash programmes require are:

Delivery mechanism	Cash transfer	Cash transfer
Modalities	Individual cash assistance Community grants	Vouchers
Options	Direct cash distribution Cash by third party provider e.g. Bank, post office, mobile phone company, money transfer service, Hawala	Value vouchers* - beneficiaries purchase whatever they need, up to voucher face value Commodity vouchers - beneficiaries purchase a specific commodity, price pre-agreed with traders and retailers

*Although beneficiaries can choose what they want to buy, the choice will still be limited to the products a certain shop offers, and often limited to a pre-determined set of items.

To define the procurement process to follow, refer to the flowcharts in the Quote-based procurement section of Sourcing for procurement, making sure the distinction is made between the value of the vouchers or amount of cash distributed and the cost of delivery.

The ICRC have published a step-by-step guide to cash transfer programmes tendering on the Cash Hub which helps planning for the entire procurement process.

Take the Cash assistance through Financial Services Provider training, a 90-minute online modular training outlining critical steps and tools to successfully contract an FSP. The training is accessible from the Cash Hub here.

Cash procurement rules:

See the Assessment section on the Cash Hub for guidance on tendering for financial service providers.

The following applies to all services:

Sourcing a financial services provider

Look up existing resources on the Cash Hub, under the assessment section, to find guidance on how to assess service providers and lay out a risk register for a cash response.

The roadmap at the start of the assessment section gives useful general information, and the “financial service providers baseline checklist” and the “mapping service provider template” are also available. There is also an “assessing FS topics and sources template”. All templates are available from the Cash Hub.

Other information sources that can support the selection of an FSPFinancial Services Provider:

There are strong regulatory controls around financial transfer services including (but not limited to) anti-money laundering (AML); counter-terrorism financing (CTF) and know your customer (KYC) procedures. Due diligence is therefore a key mitigating action against the risk of using an FSP for the delivery of a cash programme and will ensure both compliance and the technical quality of the services delivered.

A pre-qualification step should occur before the tender is published, with a Request For Information (very similar to the EOIExpression of Interest) sent to potential suppliers (the supplier registration form can be used as an RFIRequest For Information when accompanied by background information on the future tender). The FSPs who respond should be evaluated against a pre-defined set of criteria. Pre-qualified suppliers should then be invited to tender (see the Tendering for goods and services section of Sourcing for procurement for more details on restricted/open tenders). This is the preferred option, but if there is insufficient time to undertake two steps, an open tender can be the preferred route to select an FSP. Technical and financial proposals must be requested and received from suppliers or FSPs and after the technical evaluation only those eligible will be considered for the financial evaluation.

Standard selection criteria for FSPs

Check the Cash Hub’s Procurement tools and templates section for guidance on the selection of service providers and use the CBA template for Financial Services Providers (FSPs) available in the section resources to define criteria and requirements.

Standard criteria include:

A standard contract for FSP has been designed by the ICRCInternational Committee of the Red Cross. It will require adapting to the contracting organisation’s specific requirements.

For a voucher programme, retailers need to be contracted as service providers and all usual contracting requirements should be followed. A tip sheet for voucher programmes is available from the Cash Hub. A standard template for voucher printing services is also available from the Cash Hub under the Procurement tools and templates section.

Regular monitoring of the retailers and voucher providers is important from the procurement side, to ensure they hold the right items (in quantity and quality), offer fair and transparent prices, etc. The information collected from the retailers must then be triangulated with the beneficiary monitoring data to initiate payment of the retailers and of the voucher provider (reconciliation).

When using FSP services to transfer cash to beneficiaries, logistics must be involved in the reconciliation process before payments are processed. Logistics also supports the performance management of the selected FSP(s) throughout the contract implementation phase – see the Managing the performance of contracts and suppliers section of Managing procurement).

The reconciliation process should be formalised with a Certificate of completion and/or a service delivery note, available from the procurement tools on the Cash Hub.

Construction material

Where construction activities aren’t subcontracted, the organisation takes responsibility for conducting the procurement of construction materials.

A supply chain strategy is important for any programme requiring supplies but is crucial for construction projects. An analysis of the supply options needs to be included in the programme design.

Some points to consider when procuring construction items:

Note that all procurement of construction items or services done under IFRCInternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies procurement rules MUST be approved by the procurement authority in Geneva before issuing a contract.

Food and seeds

The British Red Cross rarely supports the procurement of food and seeds. National Societies would typically seek advice from the IFRCInternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies or ICRCInternational Committee of the Red Cross purchasing teams for such procurements, to manage the risks associated with procurement of food and seeds (mostly phytosanitary). For further information, see Section 3.4 of the IFRC’s procurement manual, which is dedicated to the procurement of food and seeds.

In many ways, the standards for procuring food and seeds are similar to those that apply to procurement of medical items: strong controls are in place to ensure goods are fit for consumption, and to protect national production – some countries will not allow food and seeds to be imported for example.

Always refer to your regional logistics coordinator for advice on procuring food or seeds.

Vehicles

See the Fleet chapter for details on the procurement of fleet.

Read the next chapter on Warehousing here.

Download the full section here.