Yes, managed to land various publishing jobs for 3 year with 2 annual extensions, but the rates & risks in having to swallow print/paper increases were very competitive and we now focus on PR .

Also was one of the selectors for a public sector tender, and I was impressed by the measures they took to ensure the process was fair. We pre-marked the tendering companies, based on the info they supplied on quality 80% of initial marks (from memory this mainly involved proven capacity to deliver services - measures such as staff qualifications + client projects + awards + kite-marks + financials). We never know how much each company bid - that was pre-entered into software and was applied at the end.

Tip: It takes a lot of effort to fill in the forms as you need to do risk assessments and have various policies in place, so don't embark on this before finding out whether your business status and turnover are within their guidelines. The value of the contract relative to your turn-over is important as they usually don't want to be your main dominant customer. They may also require x years trading history. Worth asking about this early on and teaming up with another company as the lead contractor if you can't meet all the criteria yourself.