Published date: 31 August 2022

Last edited date: 1 September 2022

Closed early engagement


Closing date: 29 September 2022

Contract summary

Industry

  • Education and training services - 80000000

  • Adult and other education services - 80400000

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_304845/1102447

Published date

31 August 2022

Closing date

29 September 2022

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

Description

The purpose of this early engagement notice is to notify the market that the Department for Education is interested in talking to suppliers, delivering adult education in non-devolved areas of England, to support the development of any potential future procurement exercise for ESFA AEB contracts for services. The purpose of engaging the market at this time is to:

- Understand learner needs in non-devolved areas and what kind of provision needs to be prioritised.
- Understand issues or blockers to ESFA AEB and Free Courses for Jobs delivery, reflections on previous procurements and use this to explore potential delivery models and performance standards.
- Discuss how potential procurement will interact with the proposed FE reforms and potential further devolution of skills provision. This includes the possible introduction of new funding rates, accountability arrangements, and the implications of devolution deals for contracts which are currently being consulted upon.
- Test market capacity to deliver ESFA AEB amongst other procurements occurring across the skills landscape including Multiply, Skills Bootcamps, Free Courses for Jobs, Traineeships and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

We are keen to discuss experiences of ESFA AEB procured provision and therefore we will be hosting a series of market engagement opportunities across England. The Authority does not commit to running a procurement exercise as a result of this engagement process.

How can you get involved?
Market engagement events will be hosted by DfE in late September and you can sign up to your preferred event below. We will only be discussing the procurements of the ESFA AEB in non-devolved areas.

- September 27, 11am-12pm, Microsoft Teams
- September 29, 10am-11am, Microsoft Teams

For full details of the event, including registration links, please refer to the attachment included with this notice

Attendance at market engagement events will not be a pre-requisite for being able to submit a tender if DfE decide to procure these services. If you are unable to attend one of the market engagement events, the information pack, slides and Q&A can be made available.

Please note that these are exploratory events and will not commit us to procuring or procuring services in specific ways.

For any assistance required in registering please contact: aebprocurement.help@education.gov.uk

More information

Previous notice about this procurement

Adult Education Budget Early Supplier Engagement

  • Early engagement
  • Published 31 August 2022, last edited 1 September 2022

Attachments

Links

Additional text

Registration links above - further detail of the event can be found in the attached document

About the buyer

Address

Department for Education
London
SW1P 3BT
England

Email

aebprocurement.help@education.gov.uk