Infrastructure works consultancy services

Tender description

Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) has been successful in being invited by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to co-develop a Strategic Outline Business Case for each of 2 proposals to be funded through the Forward Funding process of the HIF. The proposals are: — HIF/FF/15: access to Didcot Garden Town (175 000 000 GBP funding ask), — HIF/FF/334: West Oxfordshire — A40 Smart Corridor (145 000 000 GBP funding ask). This commission would cover the production of the Strategic Outline Business Case, in co-development with MHCLG. The Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal has the ambition of building 100 000 new homes across Oxfordshire between 2011 and 2031 to address the county’s severe housing shortage and expected economic growth. A significant proportion of this growth with be delivered in the Didcot Garden Town and West Oxfordshire areas of the County. The Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) is a way that this growth can be expedited by forward funding the infrastructure that is required as a result of the growth. Without the transport infrastructure these areas will struggle to deliver the planned growth and this will not only affect the Oxfordshire economy but the UK economy. Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) has been successful in being invited by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to co-develop a Strategic Outline Business Case for each of 2 proposals to be funded through the Forward Funding process of the HIF. The proposals are: — HIF/FF/15: access to Didcot Garden Town (175 000 000 funding ask), — HIF/FF/334: West Oxfordshire — A40 Smart Corridor (145 000 000 GBP funding ask). This commission would cover the production of the Strategic Outline Business Case, in co-development with MHCLG. The required information which is to be included in this has not been specified by MHCLG to date but is likely to include: — the relationship between infrastructure provision and housing delivery, and the extent to which the infrastructure will enable and/or accelerate housing, — a WebTAG compliant appraisal of the transport benefits which the schemes could be expected to deliver, — an examination of the wider economic impact of the delivery of the schemes on the local, regional and national levels. Responses from bidders should consider what is likely to be required to satisfy MHCLG business case requirements and how that would be provided, it should be framed around the Treasury’s Green Book’s five case model. OCC may commission a single consultant to assist us with the co-development of the business case for both of the proposals, or it may choose to award the contract for each of these separately. If the latter course is followed then it would be expected that the two consultants would agree to work in partnership with each other where this would bring benefits for the overall strength of the Business Cases. The invitation to co-develop the Business Case allocates 3 submission deadlines: — 10.9.2018: funding decisions expected from November 2018, — 3.12.2018: funding decisions expected from February 2019, — 1.3.2019: funding decisions expected from May 2019. Our preference is a submission for the 3rd December. When developing a timetable for the work, consultants should allow a minimum period of 4 weeks between the completion of the project deliverables and the submission date to allow for internal comments and approvals within the County Council. We would welcome comments on the whether the December submission deadline is achievable given the scale of work involved. Can you respond to this PIN to confirm: — whether you would like to receive the full brief and potentially submit a tender, — whether you could undertake the entirety of the SOBC or whether you would need to source subconsultants, — through which frameworks (if any) you can be sourced, — the approximate budget we should allocate for this work for each SOBC, — other experience of SOBC that you have prepared, — any specific requirements OCC as the client would need to fulfil to meet the 3.12.2018 submission deadline.