Tender for global outsourcing of receipt of applications for visa and residence/work permits (2)

The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has conducted a tender with the following description: The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is inviting tenderers for the provision of services related to the receipt and completeness control of short-term visa and residence permit applications on behalf of Danish foreign missions. The estimated total number of applications is 150 000 per year. The tender contains a list of mandatory locations and a list of optional locations, which the tenderer may accept to deliver services from. Applicants applying for a visa to Denmark shall themselves fill in the visa application form online using ApplyVisa and pay the visa fee online. Applicants applying for a residence permit to Denmark shall themselves fill in the application form online or by paper and pay the residence permit fee online. In both cases, the applicants are informed that they should bring color photocopies of all documents (except the passport) in either A4 or legal paper size. The DM may ask the External Service Provider (ESP) to request that applicants provide additional supporting documents to aid the assessment of the application. The contract includes the following services for each Visa Application Centre (VAC): The receipt and completeness control of short-term visa applications, which shall be performed by the service provider, include: — the capture of the applicants' biometric data, — enabling applicants to fill in the visa applications online, to which effect the ESP must have a sufficient number of computers with Internet access available as part of the service fee at the VAC, — scanning of visa application, passport and supplementary documentation, — handling (receiving and transferring) of application fees (in fall-back situations), — enabling applicants to pay fee online, to which effect the ESP must have a sufficient number of computers with Internet access available at the VAC, — delivery of application documents, passports, biometric data files, scanned files, etc. to the local DM, — return of passport, decision letter and supporting documents to applicant. The receipt and completeness control of residence and work permit applications shall include: — the capture of the applicants' biometric data, — scanning of residence permit applications, passport and supplementary documentation, — handling of fees (in fall-back situations), — assisting with regards to accepting fees online via the MFA payment portal, — delivery of application documents, passports, biometric data files, scanned files, etc. to the DM. The provision of these services shall comply with physical security and data protection requirements as laid down in Regulation (EC) 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13.7.2009, establishing a community code on visas with amendments, article 43, article 44 and Annex X and EU and Danish data protection legislation and data protection legislation and other security requirements in the countries where the services are provided. After the signature of the contract, the service provider shall set up the basis for the delivery of the contracted services by establishing facilities, including the necessary equipment, for the receipt of applications related to Denmark in existing VACs or by the establishment of new VACs at the locations specified in the contract for each region, implementing the required homepages, training staff to execute the contracted services, including biometric data capture and data entry and implementing biometric data capture equipment and suitable document scanners. Before the individual VACs will be operational, the service provider must pass acceptance test for each location.Main features of the procedureThe procurement was divided into (1) a tender stage where the tenderers draft their tender and (2) an award stage where the contracting entity evaluated the tenders received. The contract was awarded to the tenderer who submitted the tender with the best price-quality ratio, see the tender specifications.