Most advantageous tender (MAT)
The most advantageous tender (MAT) is the tender a contracting authority considers best meets the published award criteria under the Procurement Act 2023. It can balance price or cost with quality, risk, social value and other stated factors.
Reviewed
What MAT means
Most advantageous tender (MAT) is the Procurement Act 2023 term for the winning tender in a competitive tendering procedure. The authority assesses tenders against the award criteria and methodology published in the tender notice or associated documents, then selects the tender it considers most advantageous. MAT does not mean lowest price. Price or cost can be important, but the authority may also assess quality, technical merit, delivery, resilience, environmental performance or social value where the criteria are relevant and proportionate.
The criteria must give suppliers enough information to prepare a tender. If there is more than one criterion, the authority should set out their relative importance through weightings, rankings or another clear method. Pass/fail rules should be identified, and an abnormally low tender may need investigation.
How to use the definition
Do not optimise for a generic idea of value. Build a compliance matrix from the published criteria, then show evidence against each scoring point. Check whether a criterion is scored, pass/fail or a minimum requirement, and follow the specified page limits and pricing model. A strong innovation claim cannot recover marks from an unanswered mandatory requirement.
For example, if quality is weighted more heavily than price, a cheaper tender may lose to a more reliable delivery model. The authority must still apply the published method consistently. MAT is the current Act concept; a pre-24 February 2025 PCR competition will usually describe its award basis as the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT).