The SQ does not win you work. It only loses it. Here is what buyers check and how to stop failing on paperwork.
Before a buyer evaluates whether your proposal is any good, they check whether you are an acceptable organisation to contract with. That check is the Selection Questionnaire — the SQ, formerly the PQQ. It is mostly pass/fail, it is mostly about documents rather than persuasion, and it eliminates a substantial number of bidders every year on entirely avoidable grounds.
Part 1 — Supplier information. Company details, registration, structure, parent companies, and whether you are bidding alone, as a consortium or relying on another organisation's capacity.
Part 2 — Exclusion grounds. Self-declaration on mandatory grounds (fraud, corruption, money laundering, certain tax offences, modern slavery) and discretionary grounds (bankruptcy, professional misconduct, prior poor performance, competition breaches). Under the Procurement Act 2023 this connects to the central debarment list.
Part 3 — Selection criteria. Where the substance is:
Buyers commonly require turnover of at least twice the annual contract value — a £500k-a-year contract typically needs £1m turnover. They will also test ratios: current ratio, gearing, profitability, sometimes a credit score from Dun & Bradstreet or Creditsafe.
Two things worth knowing. First, check your credit score before bidding, not after failing — scores are often wrong, and they can be corrected. Second, if your turnover falls short, you are not automatically out: bidding as a consortium, or relying on a parent company guarantee, is explicitly permitted. What is not permitted is quietly hoping nobody checks.
Usually three, from the last three years, of similar scope and scale. Buyers want the client name, contract value, dates, a description of what you delivered, and a contact who will verify it.
Common problems: examples that are too old, too small, or not comparable; and referees who are no longer at the organisation or were never told to expect a call. Ask permission before naming someone, and tell them what the contract is so they can answer usefully.
If you genuinely lack public sector examples, use private sector ones of comparable scale and say so plainly. Buyers accept this far more often than suppliers expect. Fabricating relevance is the thing that ends badly.
Roughly 80% of any SQ is the same across buyers. Assemble a maintained folder containing:
Review it quarterly. The most common SQ failure is not an absent document but an expired one — a lapsed certificate or an insurance policy that renewed last month and was never re-filed.
On restricted procedures and framework procurements, the SQ may be scored to shortlist — typically the top five or ten proceed. Where that happens, the contract examples become genuinely competitive rather than merely compliant. Choose the ones closest in scope, scale and sector to the contract in question, and write them properly rather than pasting a stock paragraph.
Buyers are required to apply selection criteria proportionately to the contract. If an SQ demands £10m professional indemnity for a £40,000 piece of work, that is challengeable — and clarification questions are the mechanism. Ask during the clarification window. Buyers do adjust requirements when challenged sensibly, and the question costs you nothing.