The most useful document in public procurement is one most firms skim and file.
It is the assessment summary. Under the Procurement Act 2023, which came into force on 24 February 2025, every supplier whose tender was assessed receives one. It replaced the old standstill letter. Read properly, it tells you where your marks went and what the winner did differently.
What an assessment summary is
When a contracting authority runs a competitive tendering procedure under the Act, it must send an assessment summary to each supplier that submitted an assessed tender. It does this before it publishes the contract award notice.
The purpose is simple. You should be able to understand why your tender was successful or unsuccessful.
What it contains
Your summary sets out how your tender was scored against each award criterion, with an explanation of each score.
If you were unsuccessful, it also includes the same information for the most advantageous tender: how the winning bid scored against each criterion, and why. Confidential details may be redacted.
It does not give you a line-by-line comparison of your bid against the winner's. You have to make that comparison yourself. That is where most of the value sits.
How to read yours
1. Find the gaps that cost the most
List each criterion with its weighting, your score and the winner's score. Multiply the gap by the weighting. A one-mark gap on a heavily weighted question usually matters more than a two-mark gap on a light one.
The two or three largest weighted gaps are where the contract was lost. Start there.
2. Read the language of the explanations
Evaluators use consistent phrases. They map closely to the three reasons tenders fail.
"Did not address" or "partially addressed" usually means the answer did not follow the question's structure, or a requirement was missed.
"Lacked evidence" or "limited assurance" means claims without proof.
"Generic" or "not specific to the service" often means recycled copy.
Each phrase points to a fix you can make on the next bid.
3. Check the explanation against the published method
The award criteria and assessment method were set out in the tender documents. Compare the explanations with them. If a score seems to rely on something that was never in the criteria, ask the authority for clarification promptly.
Time limits for challenging a procurement decision are short. If you believe the evaluation was wrong, take legal advice straight away rather than waiting.
An illustrative example
A cleaning contractor loses a council tender. Quality is weighted 60%, price 40%. Their price was competitive. The summary shows two quality gaps:
Mobilisation, weighted 15%: they scored 3, the winner scored 5. The explanation says the plan lacked named roles and dates.
Social value, weighted 10%: they scored 2, the winner scored 4. The explanation says commitments were generic and not measurable.
Both gaps are fixable. Neither is about capability. The next mobilisation answer gets a dated plan with named roles. The next social value answer gets three measurable local commitments.
This example is illustrative. It is not taken from a real bid.
Turn the summary into your next win
Keep every assessment summary you receive. Over three or four bids, the same comments will repeat. Those repeats are your bid writing priorities, written for you by the people who score you.
A lost tender is expensive. The assessment summary is the part of that cost you get back.
Official guidance: Procurement Act 2023 guidance on assessment summaries (gov.uk)
Received an assessment summary and not sure what it means? Grow Smat offers a free bid teardown. Send the tender and your summary, and you will get an evaluator's reading of it. Request your free teardown
Sat on an evaluation panel and seen it differently? Or have a question this post did not answer? Join the discussion on LinkedIn, or email [email protected].