Published date: 28 March 2025

Awarded contract - This means that the contract has been awarded to a supplier.


Closing: 20 February 2024, 12pm

Contract summary

Industry

  • Social research services - 79315000

Location of contract

Any region

Value of contract

£49,777

Procurement reference

CF-0478200D8d000003VQwdEAG

Published date

28 March 2025

Closing date

20 February 2024

Closing time

12pm

Contract start date

6 February 2025

Contract end date

2 May 2025

Contract type

Service contract

Procedure type

Call-off from a framework agreement

A mini-competition or direct purchase from a pre-established framework agreement.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

Description

This experiment is part of our Choice Architecture Test (CAT) series. We have already conducted two tests, CAT 1 and CAT 2, with a third (CAT 3) and fourth (CAT 4) in progress. This will be our fifth test (CAT 5).
• CAT 1: tested the effect of defaults on a hypothetical Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) application. Results showed a statistically significant increase in the environmental quality of the agreement generated through defaults compared to the current SFI application design.
• CAT 2: tested the effect of defaults and guided selection on a hypothetical Countryside Stewardship (CS) mid-tier application. Results for CAT 2 also showed defaults being effective. Compared to the current CS mid-tier design & some aspects of guided selection tested during the experiment, defaults led to more spatially targeted actions being chosen (the primary outcome of the experiment) by farmers, that might indicate higher quality environmental agreements .
• CAT 3: will test the effect of geospatial functionality (i.e. presenting guidance on spatial priorities visually) & offering a default totaliser (that shows the potential financial reward for choosing options) on a hypothetical SFI application. Similar to CAT 1, statistical analysis will be conducted to gauge whether results show an improvement in the environmental quality of the agreement compared to the current SFI application design.
• CAT 4: will test the effect of offering defaults with farmers who find it difficult to access and use digital tools and services, (i.e. those with low 'digital literacy'), to assess whether findings from CAT 1 & CAT 2 are consistent for these farmers, as well as their more digitally adept counterparts.

More information

Attachments

Award information

Awarded date

13 February 2025

Contract start date

6 February 2025

Contract end date

2 May 2025

Total value of contract

£49,777

This contract was awarded to 1 supplier.

Verian Group UK Ltd

Address

4 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA

Reference

None

About the buyer

Contact name

Adrian Ajibade

Address

17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR
UK

Email

adrian.ajibade@defra.gov.uk