Say the specification requires a site manager on duty during “all operating hours”, the pricing schedule gives you a rates table that only covers weekdays, and the draft contract defines operating hours as including Saturdays. That example is invented, but the shape of it will be familiar to anyone who has read a full tender pack closely, because tender packs are assembled documents. The specification comes from the service team, the contract from legal, the selection questionnaire from a template, and the portal timetable from a procurement officer, and inconsistencies can arise between them.
Raise the inconsistency through the tender’s clarification process.
In our experience a contradiction is almost always worth a clarification question. Sometimes the authority has no idea the mistake is there until a bidder points it out. Sometimes there is a reason behind a requirement that looks odd, and the documents never explain it. Either way you only find out by asking, and the earlier you flag it, the more time everyone has to act on the answer.
Asking is the expected move
Almost every tender pack names a route for clarification questions, usually the messaging function of the portal the tender was published on, and a deadline for using it, set out in the ITT’s own timetable. That machinery exists so that gaps and errors in the documents can be put right for every bidder at once. Using it does not mark you out as difficult, and it does not form part of your score: the question sits outside the submission, and the scored evaluation has not begun.
Two features of the process matter to how you use it. First, buyers commonly share clarifications relevant to all bidders, normally without identifying the questioner, subject to confidentiality. Check the pack’s process. That is how buyers stay on the right side of their duty to treat bidders equally: one supplier cannot be handed information the others do not have. Second, the anonymisation only goes so far. The buyer knows who asked, your question is usually reproduced word for word, and a distinctive question can tell your competitors what you are thinking. Ask about the buyer’s documents, not about your own circumstances.
Keep this separate in your head from the other thing called clarification, which happens after submission, when an evaluator queries something in your bid. That process is deliberately narrow, and it is not an opportunity to improve your answer. We cover it from the buyer’s side in our post on what the people scoring your bid are told to do. The pre-submission question is the one you control, which is why it should not be wasted.
How to word a question that gets a useful answer
A vague question gets a vague answer, and a vague answer leaves you no better off with less time on the clock. Name both documents, quote both passages, and ask one closed question.
Weak: “The requirements around staffing hours seem unclear.”
Strong: “Section 4.2 of the Specification requires a site manager during all operating hours, and Schedule 2 of the draft Contract defines operating hours as Monday to Saturday, but the Pricing Schedule at Appendix C provides rates lines for Monday to Friday only. Please confirm whether Saturday cover is required, and if so whether a corrected Pricing Schedule will be issued.”
The second version does three things the first does not. It proves the contradiction rather than alleging it, so the buyer cannot plausibly answer “please refer to the tender documents”. It asks for a decision. And it quietly asks for the fix, a corrected document, which is the answer that protects every bidder including you.
For a genuine contradiction there is one more question worth asking in the same breath: which document takes precedence. If the pack contains an order-of-precedence clause, the buyer’s answer will point to it. If it does not, your question has just told the buyer they need one.
Three habits to keep. Never put your company name or anything identifying in the question text, because it is often published verbatim. Never ask something the documents do answer, because that reads as not having done the reading. And never use a question to signal a weakness, such as asking whether a certification requirement extends to subcontractors when yours is not certified: every competitor reads that answer log too.
What happens next, and why it is worth doing
When a clarification exposes a real error, the proper fix is a formal one: amended tender documents, reissued to every bidder, and a decision on whether the deadlines need to move so that everyone has time to absorb the change. A well-evidenced contradiction, raised early and politely, is a favour to the buyer, whatever it feels like to send.
If you spot it after the clarification deadline
Raise it anyway. The clarification deadline is the buyer’s own timetable, set in the ITT so that everyone has time to use the answers before tenders are due. It is not a legal cut-off, and the buyer can still amend the tender documents after it, subject to the applicable rules. Changes during a competitive flexible procedure are restricted once its initial participation or tender stage has passed; section 31 and the rules on deadlines apply. It is their error in their documents, and most buyers would rather issue a late correction than award off a broken pack.
If the deadline has passed and no correction comes, do not silently guess. State your interpretation in the submission itself, at the point it bites: name the documents, say which reading you have priced, and price it properly. Check the ITT’s rules on qualified or conditional tenders first. Explaining an assumption does not prevent it being treated as a qualification or make a non-compliant bid acceptable. If the issue remains unresolved, assess that risk before submitting. An evaluator faced with a declared, reasoned interpretation of the buyer’s own contradiction is in a very different position from one faced with a bid that quietly assumed the cheaper reading and hoped.
When a contradiction is telling you something bigger
Most contradictions are typos with consequences. Some are symptoms. If the clarification answers come back vague, or contradict each other, expect the evaluation to be run with the same care. If amendments keep arriving and each one redraws the job, the buyer has not agreed internally what they are buying, and you would be pricing a moving target. And if, after all the answers, you still cannot describe the deliverables in one clean paragraph, you cannot price them, and a contract you cannot price is a contract you cannot safely win. We set out the fuller list of signals in our post on the warning signs that mean you should walk away.
The judgement between typo and symptom is the real skill, and it is one of the things a second pair of eyes is for. When we run a bid review, a contradiction the client read past is exactly the kind of compliance risk the review exists to catch, because a response drafted against the wrong half of a contradiction risks scoring as non-compliant however well it is written. Better still is catching it before drafting starts, which costs one careful read of the pack and, where needed, one well-written question.
Ask early and ask precisely, then put the answer in your bid file.