TenderFeed - A unified portal for UK architectural tender opportunities
One of the biggest complaints about the way in which public buildings are procured in the UK is that the advertisements for architectural services tend to be published across a series of proprietary portals, and monitoring these notices involves subscribing to myriad websites which post these opportunities in different ways.
The government has made some advances in standardising the publication of their tenders through the Contracts Finder website, but Local Authorities and other public bodies have no obligation to do so, and the private sector has taken up the slack by providing subscription services which curate this information - at significant cost.
I've been working on a "proof of concept" website that attempts to consolidate all current UK architectural tender opportunities into a single location, and present this in a clear, open and accessible manner.
It's still very much a work in progress, and because of the inconsistent manner in which much of this data is published, the presentation of data relating to each notice varies greatly, however, I believe that with a little effort it would be possible to have a single, open portal where all of this information is published. This would result in a far more transparent procurement process, more competition and a better result for tendering organisations.
I'd welcome comments on the website so far, suggestions for additional features and any other feedback.
The beta site can be viewed here: http://tenderfeed.org.uk, and there's also a twitter feed that tweets these notices as they appear:
Follow @TenderFeed
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