Passenger Transport Services for Home to School Travel and Staff Travel using taxis, minibuses and coaches

Tender description

Plymouth City Council (PCC) has a statutory duty to provide Home to School transport for some 700 qualifying Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Looked After Children (LAC) learners. This transport is provided by external contractors using a combination of taxis and minibuses. The Council is obliged by EU rules to periodically re-tender these transport contracts and a decision has been taken to re-tender in 2015 with a view to introducing new arrangements in January 2016 at the start of the new school term. The Council currently has a number of contracts in place, which covers home to school transport along with ad-hoc taxi transport. The home to school elements of the current contracts will be terminated with effect from December 2015, although Plymouth City Council will continue to use its current contract for ad-hoc and staff taxi transport for a further year. A Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) will be created following completion of the PQQ process and candidates accepted onto the new DPS will be eligible to tender for education transport contracts. The DPS will allow the contractors to be accepted onto it at specified quarterly intervals throughout its lifespan.. Once organisations have been accepted onto the DPS, tendering for individual contracts will be by electronic submission of tender, normally followed by a reverse auction (e-auction) process. In some cases, where circumstances require and solely at the Council's discretion, contracts may be awarded without the reverse auction process being conducted. The provision of home to school transport is of high importance to the Council. The service supports the educational development of the learners, many of whom are amongst the most vulnerable members of the local community. Service quality, along with high standards of care and safeguarding are therefore paramount. The DPS will remain in place for a period of 5 years, with the option to extend for a further 5 years in yearly increments Suppliers interested in this opportunity should express their interest by clicking on the 'login and register interest' button below. New users to the system must register first to obtain a user name and password before returning to this opportunity. Please refer to the suppliers guide 'Visiting Site for the First Time' by clicking the 'Help' button. Once suppliers have expressed their interest they can access the procurement documentation from 'My Opportunities' on the home page.