Criteria for evaluation and selection of the best offer for the Contract Engineer service

The purpose of the legal regulations regarding public procurement in EU countries is to ensure effective funds' spending. When assessing and selecting the best offer, the contracting entities have at their disposal many different criteria, including non-price criteria. Their proper selection and application is necessary to ensure the high quality of the ordered product, delivery or service. Making an order for intellectual services, including performed by the Contract Engineer (CE), should be based primarily on the criterion of qualifications and experience. The actions and decisions taken by CE are particularly important for the quality and timeliness of the contract. The purpose of the research is to indicate to what scope and extent the awarding entities in Poland use the possibility of a wide selection of different criteria for the evaluation of intellectual services, consisting of performing the CE function. On the basis of selected proceedings, the authors discuss the criteria for evaluation and selection of the best offer applied in practice, classify them, analyze and evaluate them. The results of the conducted research indicate that the price and experience are often used in practice as the CE selection criteria. The authors, however, give numerous examples of other criteria. In many cases, these criteria are difficult to verify at the stage of evaluating offers and enforcing them in practice in course of works, raising doubts as to their effectiveness, sometimes making it impossible to make a reliable assessment and select the most advantageous offer. The authors indicate that despite many possibilities offered by the legal status in force in Poland, in practice, in some cases, criteria that have a large impact on the increase of the proposed service price, but not reflected in its quality, apply. As a consequence, it results in the lack of effective spending of public funds.