Published date: 1 April 2022

Closed early engagement


Closing date: 13 April 2022

Contract summary

Industry

  • Recruitment services - 79600000

Location of contract

North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England, London, South East, South West

Procurement reference

tender_298633/1057834

Published date

1 April 2022

Closing date

13 April 2022

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

Description

THIS IS AN INVITATION TO A MARKET ENGAGEMENT EVENT

The purpose of this Prior Information Notice (PIN) is to initiate market engagement and inform
Potential Suppliers of the opportunity to express interest in providing the service to selected further
education (FE) colleges in England, including sixth form colleges and designated institutions.
Suppliers should note that the organisations which operate FE colleges are charities and governors
are charity trustees. Governor roles are voluntary and generally unpaid.
The FE Colleges Governor Recruitment Service ("the Service") will be an integral part of the
Department for Education's (DfE's) new help and support active support offer for colleges. The
Service is designed to strengthen governance in colleges by supporting the recruitment of a diverse
range of appropriately skilled and knowledgeable governors to key roles on governing boards.
The Service will be free at the point of use. To ensure that the Service is targeted on those college
boards which have the greatest need of help, access will be via a referral from the department, which
will have the discretion to define "key" roles and will prioritise or limit referrals to ensure alignment
with the terms of the contract with the Supplier.
The outputs will be:
A successful service model whereby the Supplier will need to: understand and communicate the
benefits and responsibilities of being an FE governor to potential volunteers; work with college
governing board chairs and governance professionals (clerks) to better understand the candidate
requirements for the roles that are to be filled; and so ensure a diverse selection of appropriately
qualified and well-briefed candidates for interview by the board.
A minimum of 137 appropriately skilled and diverse governors to be appointed to key governor roles
over the contract term. Recruitment should be spread across the three financial years. This might, for
example, mean a target of 37 appointments in 2022-23, followed by 50 in each of the years
2023-24 and 2024-25.
Support and advice for boards to put in place effective induction, support and development to help
new governors understand their new responsibilities, and to continue in their roles for the longer
term.
The required outcomes or key performance indicators will be derived from the required outputs and
from measures of user satisfaction.
Funding will run from September 2022 to the end of March 2025 and applications will open in April
2022. A provisional total of up to £550,000 is available for this service. We expect to appoint one
supplier.
The Further Education Colleges Governor Recruitment Service follows on from the successful FE
Recruitment Pilot conducted in 2020-21. This service is one of a range of measures designed to
support improvement in the practice of FE college boards. Further information can be found in Skills
for Jobs and in the department's guidance for colleges on oversight and intervention.

More information

Links

Additional text

Estimated Contract Start Date: July 2022
Contract End Date: 31 March 2025

Estimated value or range of values: £550,000 (£150,000 in FY 2022/23, followed by £200,000 in years 2023/24 and 2024/25)

DfE will be hosting an open, virtual early market engagement event
on 13th April 2022 from 13:00 to 14:30 via Microsoft Teams. All parties wishing to attend this event must register their interest on DfE's e-Tendering portal: https://education.app.jaggaer.com

To register your interest please navigate to the Jaggaer home page,
click view opportunities and then select: 6666_FE Governor Recruitment -
Event joining instructions will be issued following an expression of
interest.

About the buyer

Contact name

Martin Hartley

Address

Sanctuary Buildings, 20, Great Smith Street
London
SW1P 3BT
England

Email

martin.hartley@education.gov.uk

Website

ww.gov.uk/dfe