Budget holders have authority to order goods and services on behalf of the College within their budget allocations and in accordance with the following guidelines.
Department staff given responsibility for the ordering of goods and services by Budgetholders should also be made aware of the guidelines.
Before goods or services are ordered, fees, overtime or other salary costs are incurred by a department, the department must have its budget under it’s control to cover:
- The category of expense
- The total cost
It should be established that all goods and services obtained by the College are at the lowest price available on the market.
For goods, services & projects of significant value, quotes should be obtained as follows:
- Value from € 0 to € 999 – No quote required
- Value between € 1,000 and € 5,999 – 3 verbal quotes are required
- Value between € 6,000 and € 49,999 – 3 written quotes are required
- Value over € 50,000 – Procurement Group TEP (tender evaluation panels). Please refer to the document “Procurement Policy”.
Please note for all requisitions above €1000; the Online Requisitions – Procurement Validation Form must be completed and attached.
NB Publicly funded projects and research grants may have specific conditions attached which require adherence to public procurement guidelines
The Office of Research and Innovation must be consulted on all contracts/ purchases over €50,000 (excluding VAT) as these must be advertised on the government e-tenders website.
If cost is between €25,000-€50,000 announce successful tenderer on eTenders.
Contracts less than €5,000 can be awarded on the basis of verbal or written quotes from one or more competitive supplier. Contracts between €5,000 and €50,000 can be awarded on the basis of responses to written specifications (for example, sent by email) to at least three suppliers or service providers, responses to at least three quotations sought via the electronic request for quotes facility on eTenders or can be advertised on eTenders as part of a more formal tendering process.
All purchases exceeding the EU Public Procurement Directive Thresholds, currently €215,000 (excluding VAT) for goods and service, shall be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Community (OJEC). These advertisements and related communications will be managed through The Office of Research and Innovation which must be involved from the outset of the project.
As per internal audit requirement, the written quotes and Online Requisitions – Procurement Validation Form should be attached to the requisition.
In line with RCSI’s centralisation policy, all capital purchases for IT and Building are centralised through the IT and Estates departments respectively.
No budgetholder has authority to order capital purchases from their allocated running costs budget.