Open procedure for the maintenance and further development of custom software developed for the Gaming Commission, as well as for the maintenance of operating systems and commercial and open source software used

✓There are also staff/profile requirements: bidders must propose a minimum of nine or ten specified profiles (Service Manager, Project/Chef de projet, Functional Analyst, IT Architect, Junior/Senior Developer, Tester, Frontend Expert, Technical Application Support Engineer, Cybersecurity Officer), with relevant skills, seniority and language abilities, and ensure the team collectively covers specific technologies (such as Spring, SOAP, REST, ActiveMQ/JMS, XML, Angular/AngularJS, Alfresco, Tibco Jaspersoft, ElasticSearch, microservices, Maven, Docker, Kubernetes, Grafana, Xooof).

✓At least one person must be expert in web application design with the Commission’s frameworks (Angular/AngularJS, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap) and one must know Xooof.

❓The deadlines and procedural dates are clearly specified.

✓Such as: no physical information session is foreseen; all questions must be submitted exclusively via the online forum attached to the contract notice on publicprocurement.be by 26 October 2026, and the contracting authority will publish all answers on the forum at the latest ten calendar days before the bid submission deadline.

✓Offers must be submitted electronically via e‑tendering on publicprocurement.be by 12 November 2026 at 11:40; late offers are not accepted and submission by email is expressly invalid.

✓Bidders are bound by their offer for 120 calendar days starting the day after the opening/receipt deadline.

✓The contract duration is four years from the order form, with the Commission reserving the right to terminate early at the end of year 1, 2 or 3 with at least 14 days’ notice, without damages.

✓Execution‑related SLA deadlines include: submission within ten working days of technical analysis, project plan, timing and man‑day budget after each partial mission request; execution of missions within 4 weeks (<10 man‑days), 6 weeks (10–50 man‑days) or 10 weeks (>50 man‑days) after award.

✓There is no site visit requirement mentioned; however, the contracting authority ensures 24/7 access and VPN for on‑call staff.

✓The award criteria and their weighting are detailed and formula‑based.

✓Such as: the contract is awarded to the economically most advantageous tender, evaluated only among regular offers.

✓There are four main criteria: (1) Approach to Work Package management and quality plan (15% – 15 points), requiring a description (max. 2,000 words) of project, risk, requirements, and quality management, and how it will be aligned with the Commission’s methods, with an original and complete quality plan and clear links to requirements management; (2) Capacity to respect SLA on mission response times, application availability and ticket handling (15% – 15 points), requiring justification that the bidder can meet the SLA, with explanation of work methods and methodology (max. 4,000 words); (3) Quality of proposed profiles (10% – 10 points), scored via a detailed CV grid from 0 (inacceptable) to 10 (exceptionnel/uitzonderlijk), with the average rating across the proposed profiles used as the score; and (4) Price (60% – 60 points), split into profile prices (50 points) and SLA prices (10 points).

✓Profile price scoring uses a weighted average daily rate across ten type profiles (with weights such as 20% for Senior Developer, 15% IT Architect, etc.), then applies the formula P_profiles = 50*(Y/Z), where Y is the lowest weighted average and Z the bidder’s weighted average.

✓SLA price scoring uses P_SLA = 10*(Y/Z) on the annual SLA price (excl. VAT).

✓The points for both price parts are summed, and the contract goes to the bidder with the highest total score.

✓The documents also contain numerous risks and special conditions, including penalties, guarantees, subcontracting and confidentiality.

✓Such as: the Commission explicitly derogates from the standard Royal Decree penalty regime (article 154), replacing the usual 0.1% per day with a much stricter SLA malus: for fixed‑price Work Packages, delay beyond agreed deadlines triggers a penalty calculated as (duration of delay) * 10% * (WP amount) / (initial estimated duration), capped at 20% of the WP amount.

✓Bidders must self‑report SLA penalties monthly and pay them proactively, without the Commission having to take action.

✓Where delays are caused by the contracting authority (e.g. resource competition) an “Exception Report” and “Exception Plan” process applies, and those delays do not generate penalties.

✓The Commission may stop a Work Package at any time if deliverables do not conform to specifications, with no payment due and without prejudice to further penalties.

✓The contract imposes a 5% performance guarantee (cautionnement/borgtocht) calculated on an estimated total contract value (weighted average daily rate * 1,300 working days/year * 4 years + annual SLA price * 4), to be provided within 30 days of contract conclusion via cash, public funds, collective bond, or bank/insurance guarantee, following strict documentary rules.

✓Subcontracting and use of third‑party capacity are allowed but tightly regulated: each relevant third party needs a separate ESPD and unconditional commitment, and the bidder must state which parts of the contract rely on that capacity.

✓There are strong confidentiality clauses: all tender information and exchanged documents remain the Commission’s property, must be treated as strictly confidential, and cannot be shared or reused without written consent.

✓Intellectual property rules are also derogated: the Commission must fully own the delivered products and be able to maintain them independently of the original supplier.

✓Finally, the Commission reserves the right not to award or to restart the procedure, and the contractor bears broad liability for faults and delays, including indemnifying the authority for third‑party claims.