SCF6: the formatting rules that cost bidders marks

If you take one thing from SCF6, take this: submit around 97% of the stated word count, and test-paste every answer into Notepad before it goes near the portal.

That sounds like boring housekeeping, but on this framework it was the difference between a top-scoring answer and a capped one. Special characters - the ampersand among them - were not only rejected by the portal, they counted double against the word limit. An answer written to exactly 500 words could arrive truncated, and whatever fell off the end was gone forever, unmarkable.

On SCF6, that would almost certainly be an evidence point - capping the available mark at 50%.

SCF6 rundown

SCF6 was the re-procurement of the Southern Construction Framework, run jointly by Hampshire and Devon County Councils under the Procurement Act 2023. Estimated total value £10bn across four years, from May 2027 to May 2031. It closed on 4 September, after an extension of time that came as a relief to a good many (most) people.

We supported two firms on their submissions. In both cases the same theme surfaced - information management - and in both cases it represented a large and entirely avoidable risk. Not only for this framework, but for effectively every portal-driven procurement in the market.

Why the basics carried so much weight here

Three conditions combined to make small errors expensive.

Put those together and the arithmetic is unforgiving. A formatting error that removes one sentence can cost a grade, and a grade can cost a place on a £10bn framework that will not be re-procured for four years.

The compliance rules that caught people out

The rules were harsh and unforgiving, and several of them are easy to break without noticing:

• Word-count devices - bracketed asides, footnotes, anything that inflates the real count
• Cross-referencing between answers
• Unrequested attachments
• Any changes to templates - Either formatting or protection
• Special characters, which the portal rejected and double-counted

Each of these could render material unscored. Some could render the whole tender non-compliant.

We reviewed and recrafted the quality responses for a client across two lots, where work submitted by a consultant bid writer included bullet points, tables and a number of special characters. Left unchecked, those would have caused chaos at the point of submission - Not because the content was weak, but because the portal would have refused to accept it as written.

The routine that prevents it

None of this requires expertise. It requires a process that runs on every answer, every time:

1. Read the marking scheme alongside the questions, not after them. On SCF6, the scheme told you evidence was mandatory before you had written a word.
2. Write to roughly 97% of the stated word count. The margin absorbs double-counted characters and any discrepancy between your word processor's count and the portal's.
3. Test-paste into Notepad before uploading. Plain text strips the formatting the portal will strip anyway - Better to find out on your desktop, than at point of submission.
4. Remove special characters at draft stage. Write "and", not "&". Check the whole document, including headings and captions.
5. Leave the template alone. No formatting changes, no removing protection, no helpful reorganisation.
6. Check every prompt carries its evidence, individually, as a final pass. One prompt without it is enough.

Why this matters beyond SCF6

The nuance of each procurement matters enormously - What one framework rewards, the next will treat as noise. But nuance is a second-order problem. If you are ignoring the fundamentals, and specifically the demands placed on you around making text submission-ready, every other effort you have made can be rendered pointless.

All the response planning and bid strategy in the world makes no difference if the portal deletes your content over a basic mistake.

Respect the parts that look insignificant, and build them into response planning as deliberately as anything else. Portal-driven procurement is now the norm rather than the exception, and the next framework you bid will have its own version of these rules. The routine above transfers; the specific rules will not.

Protecting a client's investment starts with the fundamentals.

We work across public sector frameworks including CCS, Pagabo, SCF, SCAPE and NHS SBS — advance intelligence, framework strategy, answer planning and full bid management. See how we work on framework procurements.