SOR (Statement of Requirements)

A Statement of Requirements is the document in which a federal client department defines what it needs to buy — the operational requirement the procurement must satisfy. It sits upstream of the bid solicitation: the evaluation criteria, mandatory requirements and technical annexes you see in an RFP are derived from it.

What it is

Per the Supply Manual annexes on CanadaBuys, the client department is the lead for requirements definition: it defines operational requirements, end-user needs, expected benefits and life-cycle costs, and then develops the Statement of Requirements (SOR) and/or Statement of Work (SOW) and/or performance specifications or standards, including accessibility specifications or criteria, for the goods and services required to meet operational needs. The SOR — along with the Security Requirements Check List and any security clauses — accompanies the funded requisition sent to PSPC.

SOR vs SOW

A statement of requirements describes the outcome: what Canada needs, at what service levels, under what constraints. A statement of work describes the work itself: tasks, deliverables, milestones and how performance will be judged. In professional-services procurements the document you receive is often a Statement of Work annexed to the RFP; the requirement-level thinking behind it lives in the SOR. PSPC's procurement community competency guidance emphasizes the essential characteristics and elements of both documents and their "contractibility" — language precise enough to become enforceable contract terms.

What it means for vendors

By the time a solicitation is published, the SOR has already shaped the evaluation criteria, mandatory criteria and basis of selection. Reading the requirement critically tells you whether the buyer is buying an outcome (deliverables-focused, more openness to your method) or a prescribed process (task-based, evaluated against compliance). Questions and challenges to the requirement happen through the solicitation Q&A window — not after award. Bidding against a poorly understood requirement is the most common way vendors lose evaluations they thought they were qualified for.

Common questions

Is the SOR published with the tender?

Usually not in its internal form. What bidders see is the derived material: the requirement section, technical evaluation criteria and annexes of the solicitation. The SOR itself is an internal requirements-definition document.

Who owns the SOR?

The client department, not PSPC. In the PSPC/client responsibility matrix on CanadaBuys, developing the SOR/SOW is a client-lead activity, while PSPC contributes on process, trade agreements and contract form.

Related definitions

Statement of work · Evaluation criteria weighting · RFP