Legal advisory and representation services

Tender description

Centro is seeking to establish a framework of legal service suppliers (‘Suppliers’) across 3 Lots covering the full range of legal services required to assist Centro in meeting its objectives. Suppliers will be required to demonstrate expertise in all areas in respect of which they are successfully appointed and to keep Centro and its in-house legal, procurement and governance professionals up to date regarding all developments within relevant areas of law. In addition, Centro seeks ‘value added’ propositions from Suppliers covering areas such as training, staff development, secondments and access to research resources. The award of this framework seeks to replace Centro's existing Legal Panel Framework that is due to expire in July 2016. This framework opportunity consists of 3 lots: Lot 1 — Full service provision; Lot 2 — Regulatory advice; Lot 3 — Parliamentary agents. Please note that requirements within this Framework do not cover Metro Legal Support, as this is provided under a separately awarded ‘Metro Legal Support Framework’ — Reference Number A2014145. Bidders can submit tenders for any or all of the Lot(s) above. Tenders are due back by the closing date of 17:00 on Friday, 6.5.2016 and the deadline for clarification questions, via BravoSolution, is 17:00 on Tuesday, 3.5.2016. It is Centro's intention to make the framework available to other local authorities in the UK. This will consist of the following: — all county councils, borough and district councils and unitary authorities throughout England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Access to these contracts will be available to the following: — West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority; — West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive; — Merseyside Integrated Transport Authority; — West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority; — West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive; — South Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority; — South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive; — Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority; — Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive; — Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority; — Transport for Greater Manchester; — Transport for London; — Strathclyde Partnership for Transport; — All those bodies listed in Statutory Instrument 2014/2234; — The Whole of Government Accounts (Designation of Bodies) Order 2014: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2234/schedule/made including future bodies as well as bodies being established as a result of re-organisations, and any subsequent order(s) should the 2014 Orders be collectively or individually repealed. For the avoidance of doubt, this shall include, but not be limited to, all local authorities and all Integrated Transport Authorities including those not listed in the 2014 Orders but who are members of the Urban Transport Group (as currently listed under http://www.urbantransportgroup.org/about-us/our-members and any updated lists); — Public transport providers in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK registered with Vehicle and Operator Service Agency. Each of these organisations will contract directly with the successful supplier. There is, however, no obligation on any other Contracting Authorities to utilise this framework agreement. As this is a Framework Agreement it is not known at this stage what the aggregate value of spend will be across the various Lots over the duration of the framework in terms of Centro spend or spend incurred by the various organisations that can access and call-off from it. The figure given above is an estimate of Centro spend over 4 years for tendering purposes only, please note that Centro cannot be held to this figure.