Send us your draft tender. We read it the way a scoring officer would — against the mark scheme, the published specification, and the patterns from real evaluator outcome letters. You get a written audit telling you exactly where the marks are, where they're being lost, and precisely what to change.
We know what it feels like to spend weeks writing a tender response and not be sure whether it's good enough. That uncertainty is the most expensive part of bidding — because you don't find out until the outcome letter arrives. The free first review removes that uncertainty before it costs you anything.
Send us your draft and the tender specification. We will score every question against the mark scheme, identify every gap, and deliver a written audit with specific recommendations. No obligation to use any other Beacon service. If the review tells you the bid is in good shape, you submit with confidence. If it finds problems, you fix them first.
How to claim your free review
Three steps. Takes less than five minutes to start.
Book a free 30-minute call. Tell us which tender you're submitting for, your deadline, and what stage your draft is at.
Send us your draft and the specification. We need both — the draft to score and the specification to score it against.
Receive your written audit within 48 hours. A document — not a call, not bullet points — that tells you exactly what to fix and in what order.
Most providers who submit internally miss at least one of these. The review exists to find them before an evaluator does.
Every question is scored against the published mark scheme — or, where a mark scheme isn't published, against the scoring patterns we've identified from evaluator outcome letters in comparable procurements. You see a score for each question, not just a general impression.
Any question with a minimum score requirement — where a score of 2 instead of 3 disqualifies the entire bid, regardless of how well every other question scores — is flagged as priority. These are the questions that end bids. They are not always the longest or most prominent questions in the specification.
For every claim made in the submission, we check whether it's evidenced — with a named example, a measurable outcome, a named regulatory reference, or a specific process description. Unevidenced claims score 2 at best. We identify every one and tell you exactly what evidence to add.
Every bullet point in every question is a separate scoring criterion. A response that addresses four out of five sub-bullets will score proportionally lower regardless of how well those four are written. We map every sub-bullet and confirm it's been explicitly answered — not just touched on in passing.
Evaluators check for named regulatory references in specific sections. CQC quality statements, the Mental Capacity Act, the Care Act 2014, NICE guidelines, the Safeguarding Adults Board, PBS frameworks — where the specification expects them, they need to be named explicitly, not implied. We flag every section where a reference is missing.
Every supporting document — CQC certificate, proof of insurance, financial accounts, policies — is checked against what the specification asked for. A wrongly uploaded document is treated as a non-response. A document attached to the wrong question is treated as missing. We check every attachment before submission day.
You receive a document — structured, specific, and actionable — that you can work from immediately. Here's what it looks like.
Beacon Writing Solutions
Tender Review — Audit Report (Anonymised Example)
Q1 — Service delivery model
Referral process described but matching criteria not named. BCP covers one scenario only — below threshold.
Q2 — Staffing & workforce
Training matrix present. Supervision frequency not stated. Care Certificate not confirmed as mandatory.
Q3 — Safeguarding
DSL named. Escalation route described. No reference to SAB or NICE NG76. MCA referenced but not applied to a scenario.
Q4 — Quality assurance
Feedback systems described. Complaint timescales: acknowledgement only — investigation and resolution stages missing.
Q5 — Social value
TOMs referenced. No named local partners or borough-specific commitments. Targets not quantified.
Q6 — Mobilisation
Phase plan present with timeline. No governance sign-off checkpoint. Venue not confirmed.
Any question where your current score falls below the minimum threshold is highlighted at the top of the report. These are fixed before anything else — because they disqualify the bid regardless of quality elsewhere.
Every recommended change is ranked by how many marks it's expected to recover. You know which fix to make first, second, and third — not just what's wrong, but which wrong things matter most with the time you have left.
For high-priority gaps, we provide the specific content that should replace or supplement what's there. Not "add more detail here" — but exactly what type of detail, what structure it should follow, and what the evaluator needs to see in that section.
A complete list of every supporting document required by the specification, confirmed against what you've attached and where. Any mismatch — wrong document, wrong question, wrong format — is flagged before it becomes a non-response.
These are not unusual mistakes. They are the standard gaps in internally written bids — and they're the reason providers with good services lose contracts to providers with better-structured submissions.
Every bullet point in a question is an independent scoring criterion. Responses that answer four of five sub-bullets score proportionally lower, regardless of the quality of those four answers. This is the most consistent finding across all reviews.
Most common gap"We have a robust complaints process" scores 1–2. "Our three-stage complaints process — acknowledgement within 24 hours, investigation within 14 days, resolution letter within 28 days, with a learning cycle embedded into the following supervision" scores 4–5. The difference is description, not quality.
High mark impactExamples drawn from the wrong client group — standard homecare examples in a complex mental health submission, basic LD examples in an autism specialist bid — are explicitly marked down by evaluators for demonstrating insufficient understanding of the contract. Examples must match the cohort.
Evaluator-noted issueCQC quality statements, the Mental Capacity Act, NICE guidelines, the Safeguarding Adults Board — evaluators check for these by name in specific sections. One evaluator noted "no reference to CQC as an integral part of governance." A single missing reference can cost marks across multiple questions.
Easily fixedBusiness continuity plans that only reference one type of disruption — or that still reference pandemic scenarios as the primary example — consistently score below threshold. Evaluators expect winter pressures, adverse weather, IT failure, staff sickness spikes, and seasonal demand separately addressed.
Threshold riskGeneric social value commitments — national organisation names, non-specific employment pledges, unmeasured targets — score 2/5 consistently. Evaluators want named local partners, ring-fenced roles for local residents, and quantified commitments they can hold the provider to at contract review.
10–20% of total scoreYour Registered Manager or care coordinator wrote the responses. The knowledge is there — but the submission structure, evidence density, and regulatory references may not match what evaluators are scoring against.
The feedback said "lacked specific evidence" or "did not fully address the criterion" — but you're not sure which section failed and by how much. The audit maps exactly where the marks went and what would have changed the outcome.
A multi-year framework, a large contract value, or a procurement with known strong competition. When the stakes are high, a second opinion before submission is the lowest-cost risk reduction available.
The draft feels strong, but you want independent confirmation that it reads well to a scorer — not just to you. The review either validates that confidence or identifies the gaps before they cost you the contract.
Drawn from Case Study 08 in our anonymised track record. A homecare provider. Three lots. Best price in the field on all three. Lost on quality alone — within 1–2% on two lots.
Yes. New clients receive a full review of their first tender submission at no charge. We score every question, identify every gap, and deliver a written audit with specific recommendations — completely free. There is no obligation to use any other Beacon service.
Most reviews are delivered within 48 hours of receiving your draft and the tender specification. For same-day urgent reviews, contact us directly — we will confirm availability and turnaround time based on the submission's scope.
No. We can review a partial draft or individual high-risk questions if you have a specific concern or a tight deadline on one section. A full audit requires the complete draft, but a targeted review of threshold-risk questions can be done on whatever you have written so far.
Yes. We review bids written internally, by another agency, or by the provider's Registered Manager. The review is independent — we read it as an evaluator would, not as an editor. We score it, identify the gaps, and tell you what needs to change.
We tell you honestly. If the review reveals a compliance failure that disqualifies the bid regardless of quality, or a gap that genuinely cannot be closed before the deadline, we say so. A failed bid reviewed and understood is more valuable than a failed bid repeated. We will also tell you exactly what to do differently on the next submission.
The end-to-end service is for providers who want Beacon to write the full bid from start to finish. The review service is for providers who have already drafted the submission internally and want an independent expert assessment before submission. Some clients use both — they draft, we review, they revise, we check the final version before it goes in.
Book a free 30-minute call, share your draft and specification, and we'll have a written audit back to you within 48 hours. Your first review is completely free — no obligation.