The starting gun for that battle, which analysts expect to increase the £3bn deal by 40%, will be fired later this year when the Premier League releases its invitation to tender documents for the three seasons from 2016-17.
The government has issued a selection of suppliers with invitation to tender (ITT) documents for its £25m identity assurance programme.
But the invitation to tender, the key document on which the contracts will be based, is still being drawn up.
Lower level suppliers are usually involved in the product development through a tendering process: in the invitation to tender (ITT), the requirements are already defined at a quite detailed level.
URS are also particularly useful in case of invitation to tender procedures, where they may represent the basis for tender official documentation, but they are generally considered as a useful reference document to define the intended use of the instrument and related acceptance criteria.
Also peculiar, according to critics, is the way in which the invitation to tender makes no reference to the desire or requirement for a garden bridge.
In one case, an invitation to tender for a contract worth less than £350,000 a year was found to require answers totalling 27,000 words to 44 questions.
However, the invitation to tender for Great Western is due just weeks before the election is called – potentially allowing an incoming Labour government to void the competition.
With a contract value of £8.4m, the process used the official TfL Engineering & Project Management Framework and went through the proper formal stages of Expression of Interest and Invitation to Tender.
Northern Ireland's government has published an invitation to tender for voice and data communications services, including related hardware, software, maintenance and support services, worth between £5m and £20m.
