Organising Public Procurements for Design Works and Construction Works - Part 2: Organising Public Procurements for Construction Works

2Scope / Description

This Estonian standard covers the preparation and organization of public procurement for construction works, the requirements applicable to businesses operating in the construction sector, and the requirements, recommendations, and guidelines for the foundational documents of such procurements. It also addresses suitable qualification criteria, evaluation criteria, and contract terms for public procurement of construction works.

Public procurement requirements are derived from national and European Union legislation; therefore, the standard primarily focuses on obligations prescribed by these legal acts. However, it does not aim to provide detailed explanations of the general principles or formal requirements applicable to all cases of public procurement, regardless of the subject matter of the contract. The standard concentrates on issues of central importance when ordering construction works, thereby emphasizing the substantive priorities of this sector over the formal and procedural matters already regulated under the Public Procurement Act.

Given the diversity of procedural rules depending on the estimated value of a public procurement, as well as other influencing factors and their differentiation within the construction field, the standard does not aim to provide exhaustive recommendations or guidelines for all situations that may qualify as public procurement for construction works under the Public Procurement Act or relevant directives. Consequently, the standard covers those public procurements that, based on their monetary value or other criteria, constitute the main portion of public construction procurements conducted in Estonia, and which, due to this, are of central importance in harmonizing the practices of contracting authorities.

The standard applies to public procurement of construction works that simultaneously meet all of the following conditions:

- The subject of the public procurement is construction work on a building requiring a building permit (more precisely, construction work on a building requiring a building permit, including construction of installations if such installations are necessary to serve the building to be constructed, are functionally related to the building, and are commissioned under the same contract for the building's construction). Other facilities, including special installations, are excluded from the scope of the standard due to their highly diverse specific requirements and possible public-law restrictions that must be taken into account during their construction. This does not preclude the application of the standard to construction work on installations (including special installations); however, in such cases, the specific requirements for the type of building prescribed in the Construction Act and other legal acts must also be observed.

- The estimated value of the public procurement is equal to or exceeds the national threshold. The standard does not cover light contracts or public procurements below the threshold for light contracts, since legislation affords contracting authorities greater decision-making powers, procedural simplicity, and flexibility for procurements with lower estimated values, providing them with broad discretion in selecting procedural rules. Regardless, the recommendations and guidelines of this standard may also be applied to light contracts and procurements with lower estimated values, as the principles governing the organization and execution of construction works do not depend on the formal procedural rules of public procurement or on the estimated value of the procurement.

- The public procurement is conducted as an open procedure, restricted procedure, competitive dialogue, competitive procedure with negotiation, or negotiated procedure without prior publication. Due to the lack or scarcity of sector-specific practice, innovation partnerships and construction concessions are excluded from the scope of the standard. The standard does not aim to provide step-by-step instructions for conducting various procurement procedures and the associated procedural steps, but rather to offer general recommendations that are primarily specific to the construction sector and applicable regardless of the procedural type.

- The public procurement is organized by a contracting authority from the public sector, except where a public-sector contracting authority concludes a contract in the fields of defense and security or in relation to its activities in the network sector while applying the relevant procedural rules. The standard also does not cover procurements by contracting authorities operating in the network sector in connection with their activities in that sector.

Given the dynamics of legislative development, it is recommended to verify the references to legal acts provided in the text when using the standard and to determine whether the wording of those acts has been amended after the standard entered into force. References to legal acts are current as of June 8, 2020.