Purpose and tasks of the association

As bidders in public procurement procedures in Germany, construction companies must provide evidence of the necessary documents to prove their suitability in accordance with § 6a VOB/A or § 6a EU VOB/A, in particular with regard to technical qualification, reliability and efficiency for each individual procurement procedure, by submitting corresponding documents. Public contracting authorities will then re-examine these documents for each bidder and each construction project. Against this background, it is the objective of the association to enable a rationalisation for bidders of public procurement procedures in Germany through prequalification and digital provision of the data. To this end, a list of those companies which are prequalified to be included in a public procurement procedure is made available to the public contracting authorities in the official list of approved ecnomic operators PQ-VOB in order to facilitate their work, because they fulfil the requirements in the VOB/A.

The pre-emtion and order-independent examination of the suitability certificates defined by the VOB/A contributes considerably to cost reduction and will be carried out as a voluntary offer in future by specially commissioned prequalification bodies under constant supervision of the DAkkS and control of the Association for the Prequalification of Construction Companies e.V., which is independent of all parties involved in the award procedure.

The pre-emtion qualification test related to the service area ensures the following:

• Examination of the proofs of suitability already before submission of the tenders
• Examination of the proofs of suitability by specially qualified and independent offices in compliance with uniform national requirements
• Regular monitoring of the qualification tests carried out by the DAkkS and examination by the independent "Verein für die Präqualifikation von Bauunternehmen e.V."
• Relief for companies and public contracting authorities
• Cost and time savings
• Prequalification also for subcontractors
• Increase in quality through information about qualified companies verified by independent third parties
• Transparency in public contracts
• Digital availability of data for registered public contracting authorities
• Availability of data also in electronic contracting platforms via integration of the official list of approved economic operators

The aknowledgement of the prequalification PQ-VOB by public contracting authorities is anchored in the VOB.

Note: In order to avoid misunderstandings, we would like to point out that the proof of suitability confirmed with the prequalification (PQ VOB) with regard to technical knowledge, reliability and performance in accordance with § 6a VOB/A or § 6a EU VOB/A neither contains the economic stability of bidders nor the quality assurance in accordance with the specifications of technical regulations or the responsible building supervisory authority. For this purpose, the public contracting authority may take special precautions. This also applies to special contract-related proofs of suitability.

The tasks of the Verein für die Präqualifikation von Bauunternehmen e.V. (Association for the Prequalification of Construction Companies) are specified in the Guideline for the Prequalification of Construction Companies.

One of the current tasks of the association and its organisation is to have the prequalification offices prove that the prerequisites for a prequalification as proof of suitability for the public contracing authorities of public contracts are met for each company on the list.

In accordance with the guidelines, the Association maintains the nationwide list of prequalified construction companys (official list of approved economic operators PQ-VOB) on the basis of the data provided by the prequalification offices and makes it available on the Internet to all parties involved .

The Association grants the licences for the activity as a prequalification office on the basis of a competitive selection procedure and has supervision over the technical activities of the prequalification offices with regard to prequalification and the prequalification procedure and ensures compliance with a uniform procedure for all prequalification offices in accordance with the guidelines.