Published date: 18 July 2019

Closed opportunity - This means that the contract is currently closed. The buying department may be considering suppliers that have already applied, or no suitable offers were made.


Closing: 20 August 2019

Contract summary

Industry

  • Education and training services - 80000000

Location of contract

Any region

Value of contract

£0 to £500,000

Procurement reference

tender_213213/782678

Published date

18 July 2019

Closing date

20 August 2019

Contract start date

1 November 2019

Contract end date

31 October 2021

Contract type

Service contract

Procedure type

Open procedure (below threshold)

Any interested supplier may submit a tender in response to an opportunity notice.

This procedure can be used for procurements below the relevant contract value threshold.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

Description

The purpose of this procurement is to appoint a delivery partner to
A. set up and run between 6 and 10 demonstrator hubs in England which promote partnerships between independent schools and looked-after children (LAC) and;
B. a national placement brokerage service for the placement of LAC in independent schools.

2.2 The Department is looking to fund a service from October 2019 to provide targeted advice and bespoke, specialist support to Local Authorities (LAs) & Schools to place in children in the Independent Schools' Sector. This will help them to build their capacity and capability to continue placing children once this contract has come to an end.

2.3 Where placements are not the most appropriate for children, the department still wants to enable those children to experience the high quality offer of provisions, clubs and targeted support from indepependent schools in the locality. This is why alongside the placement service we would expect the delivery partner to setup and run between 6-10 regional demonstrator hubs to allow the widest range of LAC to benefit.

2.4 This new programme (both hubs and placements service) will need to support and complement - not duplicate - other resources available to LAs & schools.

2.5 The hubs will deliver support to local authorities looking to find ways to address some of the achievement and attainment gaps that exist within LAC cohorts to better support their progression in school and beyond by making the best use of good or outstanding independent schools.

2.6 Facilitating the spread of good practice nationally by harnessing the best of the demonstrator hubs so that it can inform a national rollout after the contract comes to an end.

2.7 The imperative is to fill gaps in the knowledge that children's services professionals have, disseminate good practice and ensure that local hubs have access to bespoke, specialist support to help them respond to the needs of children in care. For example where there is a need for LAC to receive targeted support with university applications, the hubs would work with LAs to broker a partnership of independent schools which can provide targeted UCAS interventions. This may be through afters chool clubs, masterclasses or Saturday schools to name a few.

2.8 We are making available up to a maximum of £562,500 for 27 months (October 2019 - December 2021) to help deliver this new national palcements service and the local demonstrator hubs.

About the buyer

Address

Department for Education
Manchester
M1 2WD
England

Email

Jon.Hayes@education.gov.uk