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Dental Retendering: Administrative Services Only

Fairness monitor final report: January 29, 2024

Addendum to final report: Not applicable

Submitted to: Director, Fairness Monitoring Program

Submitted by: Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Consulting Inc. (RCGT)

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Attestation of assurance

The fairness monitor (FM) hereby provides the following unqualified assurance statement concerning the Pensioners’ Dental Services Plan (PDSP) and Public Service Dental Care Plan (PSDCP) administrative services only (ASO) industry engagement, request for proposal (RFP) and bid evaluation processes.

It is our professional opinion that the industry engagement, RFP and bid evaluation processes that we observed or monitored were carried out in a fair, open and transparent manner.

The FM did not monitor or observe contract award and debriefing activities.

Original signed by:

Marco Perron
President and Chief Executive Officer
Chartered Professional Accountant
Chartered Accountant
Certification in Risk Management Assurance
Fairness Monitoring Contractor’s Representative

Paul Maniscalco
Chartered Professional Accountant
Chartered Accountant
Fairness Monitor

Project requirement

RCGT was engaged on August 23, 2019 as an FM to observe the PDSP and PSDCP ASO contract retendering procurement process, issued by Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) on behalf of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS), as a result of bid solicitation 24062-200268/B. RCGT is an independent third party with respect to this activity.

This report covers the activities of the FM, during the industry engagement phase from August 23, 2019 continuing through to the conclusion of the bid evaluation phase on February 5, 2023.

The PDSP is a voluntary contributory dental services plan sponsored by the Government of Canada (GoC) for public service pensioners and their eligible dependents. The plan provides coverage to eligible public service pensioners (including survivors) and their eligible dependents, who are enrolled in the plan. The current PDSP contract was awarded through a competitively tendered PWGSC procurement process on behalf of the TBS in 2006 and will expire on December 31, 2024.

The PSDCP is a compulsory, self-insured employer-paid dental care plan for federal public service employees and their eligible dependents, eligible dependents of members of the Canadian Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, members of Parliament, federal judges, employees of a number of designated agencies and corporations. The PSDCP administrative service contractor has been the same since its inception in 1987. Financial agreements between the GoC and the contractor are renewed every 2 to 4 years in order to set retention charges for the plan.

This procurement is for the provision of a single competitively tendered contractor to provide health care claims processing and adjudication services for the PDSP and PSDCP.

We reviewed all of the information provided and observed all relevant activities.

This report includes:

  • our attestation of assurance
  • a summary of the scope and objectives of our assignment
  • relevant observations from the activities undertaken

Fairness monitoring engagement and observations

In accordance with the terms of our engagement, we:

  • reviewed documents provided by the contracting authority (CA)
  • monitored communications with proponents provided by the CA
  • attended meetings that the CA requested our presence at
  • identified any potential fairness-related matters to the CA
  • ensured that responses and actions were reasonable and appropriate

In this section

Notice of procurement notification: 24062-200268/A

PWGSC issued a notice of procurement (NPP) on June 18, 2019, with a closing date of January 31, 2022. RCGT consulted the NPP on October 2, 2019 and did not identify any fairness related matters.

Letter of interest and request for information notification: 24062-200268/B

PWGSC issued a letter of interest (LOI) - request for information (RFI) on June 20, 2019, with a closing date of January 31, 2022. RCGT consulted the LOI - RFI on October 2, 2019 and did not identify any fairness-related matters.

The LOI - RFI consisted of:

  • informing industry of Canada’s decision to adopt the agile engagement process (AEP)
  • share details on Canada’s AEP
  • invite industry to register for the AEP

On February 25, 2020 and February 27, 2020, RCGT received the registration emails received by PWGSC from industry. RCGT did not identify any fairness related concerns with the requests for registration.

Further communications related to the AEP process and RCGT’s assessment are disclosed in below.

Agile engagement process: Release 1

From August 26, 2019 to February 27, 2020, a review of AEP 1 was performed and questions, comments and identified issues were discussed. RCGT received the first draft of the AEP 1 on August 26, 2019. The AEP 1 was emailed to interested bidders on August 29, 2019.<.p>

The AEP 1 closed on October 4, 2019 at 17:00 Eastern Standard Time (EST).

In accordance with the terms of our engagement, we:

  • familiarized ourselves with the relevant documents
  • observed the AEP1 phase identifying fairness related concerns to the CA
  • ensured that responses and actions were reasonable and appropriate

All comments identified by RCGT throughout the AEP 1 were resolved by either the technical or contracting authorities.

Agile engagement process: Release 2

From February 28, 2020 to November 23, 2020, a review of AEP 2 was performed and questions, comments and identified issues were discussed. RCGT received the first draft of the AEP 2 on June 20, 2020. The AEP 2 was emailed to interested bidders on June 23, 2020.

The AEP 2 closed on August 4, 2020 at 17:00 EST.

In accordance with the terms of our engagement, we:

  • familiarized ourselves with the relevant documents
  • observed the AEP 2 phase identifying fairness related concerns to the CA
  • ensured that responses and actions were reasonable and appropriate

All comments identified by RCGT throughout the AEP 2 were resolved by either the technical or contracting authorities.

Agile engagement process: Release 3

From November 24, 2020 to January 29, 2021, a review of the AEP 3 was performed and questions, comments and identified issues were discussed. RCGT received the first draft of the AEP 3 on January 4, 2021. The AEP 3 was released for interested bidders on January 29, 2021.

The AEP 3 closed on February 19, 2021.

In accordance with the terms of our engagement, we:

  • familiarized ourselves with the relevant documents
  • observed the AEP 3 phase identifying fairness-related matters to the CA
  • ensured that responses and actions were reasonable and appropriate

All comments identified by RCGT throughout the AEP 3 were resolved by the CA.

Agile engagement process: Release 3—Addendum 1

From January 30, 2021 to July 21, 2021, a review of the AEP 3 addendum 1 was performed and questions, comments and identified issues were discussed. RCGT received the draft AEP 3 addendum 1 on July 20, 2021. The AEP 3 addendum 1 was released for interested bidders on July 21, 2021. The AEP 3 addendum 1 closed on August 13, 2021.

In accordance with the terms of our engagement, we:

  • familiarized ourselves with the relevant documents
  • observed the AEP 3 addendum 1 phase identifying fairness-related matters to the CA
  • ensured that responses and actions were reasonable and appropriate

All comments identified by RCGT throughout the AEP 3 addendum 1 were resolved by the CA.

Agile engagement process: Release 4

From August 14, 2021 to December 20, 2021, a review of the AEP 4 was performed and questions, comments and identified issues were discussed. RCGT received the first draft of the AEP 4 in sections during the period of September through to December 2021. The AEP 4 was released for interested bidders on December 20, 2021.

The AEP 4 closed on January 21, 2022.

In accordance with the terms of our engagement, we:

  • familiarized ourselves with the relevant documents
  • observed the AEP 4 phase identifying fairness-related matters to the CA
  • ensured that responses and actions were reasonable and appropriate

All comments identified by RCGT throughout the AEP 4 were resolved by the CA.

Request for proposal phase

From May 26, 2022 to October 12, 2022, we performed a review of the RFP. Questions, comments and issues identified were addressed. RCGT received the first draft of the RFP on June 3, 2022. The RFP was posted on CanadaBuys on July 29, 2022. Nine amendments to the RFP were issued from August 12, 2022 to September 28, 2022.

From August 12, 2022 to September 28, 2022, reviewed all questions and responses along with the corresponding RFP amendments.

The RFP closed on October 12, 2022 at 14:00 EST.

Bid evaluation phase

The following activities were performed by the FM during this phase:

  • attended a series of evaluation consensus meetings from October 31, 2022 to January 17, 2023
  • observed the evaluation process including observing the consensus meetings of the evaluation team related to the technical evaluation criteria
  • reviewed documentation related to the evaluation including technical evaluation criteria and grids

The evaluators performed an individual evaluation of the submission first and then consensus meetings were conducted to arrive at a consensus score for the technical criteria. The meeting was mediated by the technical authority with support from the CA.

Using the evaluation criteria, it was determined that both bidders were compliant with the requirements.

The FM did not monitor or observe contract award and debriefing activities.

Reference documents

The documents related to solicitation 24062-200268/B are available on CanadaBuys or through the project office.

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