Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about our tender support services for cleaning and healthcare providers.
General Questions
What does Silver Excellence do?
SEbids is a specialist tender writing and bid management company. We help cleaning, facilities and healthcare providers across the UK win public sector contracts sourcing the right opportunities, writing compliant and persuasive submissions, and managing the process from first alert through to final award.
Do you deliver cleaning or care services yourselves?
No we don’t deliver cleaning or care services. We’re a bid writing consultancy: our clients are the cleaning and healthcare providers who deliver those services, and we help them win the contracts that let them do it. This means our focus is entirely on your tender, not on competing with you for it.
Where do you operate?
We work with providers across the UK, supporting tenders issued by local authorities, NHS bodies, Integrated Care Boards, housing associations, education institutions and other public sector buyers, wherever they’re based.
What sectors do you specialise in?
Two: cleaning & facilities, and healthcare covering domiciliary care, residential and nursing care, supported living, extra care housing, and children’s services. We focus on these deliberately, rather than writing generic bids across every industry, because winning tenders in either sector depends on evidencing the specific compliance and quality standards evaluators are scoring against.
Services and Coverage
What services do you offer?
Four core services:
Tender Sourcing (finding and filtering the right opportunities for your business)
Tender Writing (producing compliant, persuasive submissions)
Tender Review (an independent health-check on a bid before you submit), and Bid & Contract Management (coordinating the full process end-to-end, including support through mobilisation once you’ve won).
Do I need to use all four services, or can I pick one?
Pick whichever you need. Some clients just want us to review a bid they’ve already drafted; others want full end-to-end support from opportunity alert to submission. We scope the engagement around where you actually need help.
Can you help if I've never bid for a public sector contract before?
Yes this is one of the most common starting points we work with. We’ll talk you through what to expect (PQQs, ITTs, frameworks, evaluation criteria) and build your first submission with you rather than assuming prior tendering experience.
Can you help with framework applications and Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS), not just individual tenders?
Yes. Framework and DPS applications have their own structure and evidence requirements, and we support both the initial application to join and any mini-competitions or call-offs that follow.
Cleaning & Facilities Tenders
What types of cleaning contracts do you write tenders for?
Commercial and office cleaning, industrial and warehouse cleaning, retail cleaning, healthcare and clinical cleaning, educational institution cleaning, public sector and local government contracts, and specialist cleans such as post-construction or deep cleaning.
Do you understand BICSc standards and TUPE?
Yes our cleaning tender writers build submissions around BICSc training standards, TUPE transfer arrangements, and the mobilisation planning that public sector buyers expect to see evidenced clearly.
Can you help with integrated facilities management (FM) bids, not just cleaning?
Yes. Where a tender bundles cleaning with services like security, maintenance or grounds, we help you present a coherent bundled submission, whether you deliver everything in-house or via subcontractors and partners.
What should I have ready before we start writing a cleaning tender?
Your method statements, staff training and retention approach, mobilisation plan, environmental/sustainability policy, and pricing structure. If you don’t have all of this documented yet, we can help you build it as part of the process.
Healthcare Tenders
What healthcare contracts do you write tenders for?
Domiciliary and home care, residential and nursing care, supported living, extra care and assisted living, and children’s services (Ofsted-regulated). See our Healthcare sector pages for the full breakdown of each.
Do you understand CQC requirements?
Yes. We build your quality and compliance sections directly around the domains CQC inspects against safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led using your CQC rating and inspection evidence as part of the tender narrative.
What about Ofsted, for children's services?
Children’s residential care, fostering agencies and semi-independent living are regulated by Ofsted rather than CQC, and we write to Ofsted’s Quality Standards specifically for these submissions rather than reusing CQC-style language.
Is our safeguarding and service-user information handled confidentially?
Yes. Any safeguarding, service user or commercially sensitive information you share with us for bid preparation is handled under strict confidentiality and data protection practices.
Can you help with NHS and Integrated Care Board (ICB) commissioned contracts, not just local authority ones?
Yes we write for local authority, NHS and ICB-commissioned healthcare contracts, including NHS Continuing Healthcare placements and community/hospital discharge services.
The Tendering Process
How do you actually help us win a contract?
We respond to the tender documents on your behalf — Invitations to Tender (ITT), Requests for Quotation (RFQ), Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (PQQ) or framework applications — building submissions around quality delivery, compliance, value for money, social value and evidenced past performance, matched to how UK public sector buyers typically score price/quality splits.
What's the difference between a PQQ, an ITT and a framework application?
A PQQ (or Selection Questionnaire) checks you’re eligible and capable of bidding at all. An ITT is the full tender you’re scored and awarded against. A framework application gets you onto an approved supplier list, from which individual contracts (call-offs or mini-competitions) are then awarded. We support all three.
What's your pricing structure?
Pricing depends on the scope of support you need a single tender review is priced differently to full end-to-end bid management on a large framework submission. Get in touch for a quote tailored to your specific opportunity.
How long does the process take?
It depends entirely on the tender’s own deadline, which can range from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. We work backwards from your submission date to build a realistic timeline, and we’ll tell you upfront if a deadline is too tight to produce a competitive bid.
This FAQ addresses the most common questions from clients, procurement teams, and stakeholders in the UK cleaning and healthcare tender market. For specific tender-related queries or tailored information, please reach out directly.