Lot 1
The SEND taxi service provides the contracting authority with vehicles, drivers and passenger assistances to accompany children and young people to their place of education and may also be utilised for vulnerable adults on their journeys where required. It is mainly used by the contracting authority to support delivery of its statutory transport duties to support children and young people with SEND to travel to/from school/college. There are currently 75 taxi rounds transporting children and young people on these journeys, both within and outside of Southwark, as well as occasional ad hoc journeys as part of family support packages. Please note that these services exclude specialist school bus transport for children with SEND during term time which is currently provided under a separate contractual arrangement. The contracting authority currently has two companies on its taxi framework and is very keen to include additional companies able to provide SEND taxi services on its new framework. There have been a number of national and local policy changes relating to home to school transport and local authority funding changes in recent years which have required the council to review its approach to contracting and delivering services. The aim of this procurement is to establish a replacement framework agreement comprising up to five (5) companies that are able to demonstrate their ability to meet the contracting authority’s specification for this service alongside, flexibility and value for money. It is essential that this framework is also able to provide safe and reliable taxi transport of a high quality for children and young people using this service. The contracting authority requires five transport providers, able to deliver excellent SEND taxi services using a range of vehicles including; cars, MPV’s/people-carriers and wheelchair-accessible vehicles. Passenger Assistants will be required on some rounds to provide support to service users who have additional needs. Details of how the service will operate and the standards to be met in delivery of this contract are set out in the Service Specification.
