Struggling to Finalise Your Bid? Read our latest Q&A with the Team.
As we get closer to the deadline for the Open Networks Competition (23 May 23:59) we wanted to provide further clarification on several key points that we hope will support and encourage you to submit your bid.
Our bid focuses on a topic outside of the areas specified in the competition documentation: should we still apply?
We are keen to encourage a large number of bids from the widest range of stakeholders, covering different use cases, technologies and equipment.
We are very open to seeing bids covering areas we haven't considered: as long as a clear line can be drawn to the competition objectives then we would encourage you to submit your bid.
We may struggle to meet the application deadline, will DSIT accept bids with some provisional details?
DSIT would ideally prefer ‘complete’ proposals, and we would encourage you to aim for this wherever possible. However, we will accept proposals containing provisional information in certain areas. Accepted provisional information supplied as part of funding bids could include:
- Supplier details: It is not essential to have finalised your consortium’s suppliers at this stage. You should however be clear in your proposal about the type of products or services you will need to procure. The time it will take to procure this should also be reflected in your project plan.
- Consortium members: you do not need finalised consortium members at this stage, for example, if senior approval for their involvement is required and still pending.
- Finance and commercial forms: while these should be realistic, figures can be “best effort” and subject to formal internal clearance. Please clearly indicate where this is the case.
The critical point is to demonstrate that you have considered the questions and have provided as much relevant detail as possible, identified key risks and demonstrated you have fully considered them and have a plan or mitigations in place. Successful applicants will then work with DSIT to finalise and formalise project details when agreeing on the Grant Funding Agreement.
If you are providing provisional information, this should be clearly highlighted accordingly in the bid. Additionally, it is important to be aware that:
- This is not an extension to the deadline for bid submissions; anything submitted after 23.59 on 23 May will not be considered;
- The lack of detail in specific areas may lead to bids being scored lower than they would be otherwise;
- Substantial changes in scope or funding may lead to successful bids being rejected at the Grant Funding Agreement stage.
If you have any specific questions or concerns surrounding your bid, particularly those around issues that will determine whether you will submit or not, please reach out to the ONP enquiries mailbox (onp.enquires@dcms.gov.uk) as soon as possible.
I am still looking to finalise my consortia and am actively looking for partners, can you help?
We would recommend that you review the GOV.UK Find a Consortium Partner page or if you would like a more bespoke introduction you can reach out to the UKTIN Specialist Guidance service for support.
When does the DSIT mailbox stop responding to questions?
To ensure we can answer more of your queries we have extended the deadline for guaranteed question responses to 17 May (previously 9 May).
As a reminder, the ONP enquiries mailbox is: onp.enquires@dcms.gov.uk.
After 17 May the mailbox will continue to be monitored so if you do have questions beyond this date please do get them in and we will endeavour to respond as soon as possible. Similarly, if you have issues after the deadline you can use the mailbox to get in touch with us. However please note, there are no guarantees on response times to queries received after the 17 May deadline.
Check out our updated suite of resources to support applicants:
- Competition guidance page
- Briefing event recording
- Pitching event round-up
- Commercial and Finance teach in recording
- Subsidy Control teach in recording
- Finding a consortia page
- Contact the UKTIN Specialist Guidance Service at specialistguidance@uktin.net who can provide advice and introductions
If you'd like any further clarification relating to the competition the FAQ document is available here. If your question isn't answered within the FAQs please get in touch with the team via ONP.enquiries@dcms.gov.uk.
