General Procedures for Policy 8.9 - Woodlot Licence Program - Competition, Evaluation, and Award

Effective Date: 29-May-2008
Responsible Branch: Resource Tenures and Engineering Branch

Resource Management Volume Table of Contents | Amendment Log

Advertisement

Advertisements for woodlot licence opportunities shall be as specified in Forest Service Policy 8.9 and the Advertising, Deposits, Disposition and Extensions Regulation.

Application Opening

Only those applications that have been received by the specified time will be opened. Applications should be examined to ensure that they contain the mandatory requirements. Those not containing the mandatory items should be double-checked before being deemed to be ineligible applications and not being accepted for evaluation.

The opening will take place at the time and place advertised and may be open to the public. An evaluation of the applications should not take place at the opening. The information that can be released to the public attending should be no more than the names of the applicants.

The Contract Management Manual provides the details involved in opening applications.

Application Screening

All applications submitted before the specified time will be screened and only those applications submitted by eligible applicants, as defined in Section 44 of the Forest Act, will be evaluated.

Applications will be further screened for the following mandatory items:

• include a bonus offer
• include a security deposit (refundable to unsuccessful applicants)
• include a certification of information (if requested)

Applications not containing the mandatory information will be deemed to be ineligible applications, will not be evaluated and will be returned to the applicant.

Application Evaluation

All eligible applications shall be evaluated according to the attached criteria. Each application will be given a score by the regional manager or district manager.

If one application receives a score that is higher than the score received by any other application, the applicant would usually be awarded the woodlot licence, subject to an administration review period.

All applicants will be notified of the results of the evaluation by mail.

Administrative Review Period

The regional manager or district manager will not award a woodlot licence or declare a tie until an administrative review period of five business days has been concluded. The administrative review period will commence five business days after the letters notifying applicants of the results have been mailed. The notification letter must specify the termination of the administrative review period.

The purpose of an administrative review period is to allow any applicant to request and receive an explanation from the district manager as to how the scoring of their application was determined before an award decision is made. Only the scoring of the applicant requesting the review is to be discussed with that applicant.

The total scores of all applicants should be included in the letter to the applicants. A summary of the scoring (Table 3) should be released. This summary would not include the fine details that would be present on the evaluation spreadsheet.

The five day administrative review period will not be extended.

Table 3 - Sample summary of scoring by eligible applicants for a woodlot licence that could be released to all applicants.

Award

The applicant determined to be 'the best', for the purposes of Section 44 of the Forest Act, will be offered the woodlot licence.

The total scores of all applicants should be included in the letter to the successful applicant and to the unsuccessful applicants. Details of the scoring, as recorded on the evaluation spreadsheet (Table 3), should be released.

Issuance

The woodlot licence will be issued after a Management Plan has been prepared and approved. The woodlot licence becomes effective once both parties have signed the agreement. Backdating or forward dating of documents is not appropriate.