Administration services

Tender description

** The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s (ESFA) main business is to make allocations of funding to education and training institutions effectively, accurately and on time. Student support payments form part of the overall allocations package. The provision of student support forms part of DfE’s strategy for raising participation and closing the education gap and supports its strategy to retain all young people in education, training or work experience until age 18. Currently, a proportion of the administration of student financial support services is contracted-out through the Student Bursary Support Service (SBSS). The contract to provide the SBSS will expire on 31.8.2019 and will not be extended. DfE must therefore have a replacement service ready by May 2019 to handle the applications for students starting their studies in September 2019. The Student Bursary Support Service (SBSS) is a service to: — process student applications for Care to Learn financial support, which involves eligibility checks of the student (circ 3 000 applications annually), — process institution funding claims for the 16 to 18 Bursary Fund for vulnerable students (circ 4 000 claims annually), — process student application details for Professional and Career Development Loans (circ 38 000 applications/data adjustments annually), — carry out monthly verification of course attendance at education institutions (circ 3 000 students annually), — carry out monthly verification of child attendance at eligible/registered childcare providers (circ 3 000 students annually), — carry out weekly verification of Ofsted registration of childcare providers (circ 1 000 childcare providers annually), — provide support for students, education institutions and childcare providers that need additional information and advice (circ 50 000 enquiries annually), — the SBSS makes circa 22 000 support payments annually to education institutions (schools, colleges and providers) and childcare providers worth approximately 37 000 000 GBP per academic year. DfE provides the funds to make these payments on a weekly basis, — students, childcare providers and education institutions are the primary customers for the Student Bursary Support Service and they must receive the support and payments to which they are entitled. The current contract to provide the Student Bursary Support Service will expire on 31.8.2019. The service provider will be required to provide the necessary office accommodation, infrastructure, IT systems, staff and resources to administer these student support schemes. The service provider will provide an end to end service, from the submission of the applications by the students/education institutions to the payments to the providers. Contract will cover the set-up and implementation of the service from May 2018 to August 2019, operation for 3 academic years from September 2019 to August 2022 (initial term). Subject to government policy and available funding there will be an option to extend the service for a 4th and 5th academic year (September 2022 to August 2023 and September 2023 to August 2024. We will consider a variety of service delivery options including fully outsourced to a single supplier or multiple suppliers working in partnerships or as a consortium. This contract will not be offered as lots and will require a main contractor to delivery the service during the term of the contract. We will also consider other options, if proposals do not meet our cost benefit expectations. This procurement exercise follow the Open OJEU procedure electronically via the Redimo 2 system. To prevent delays accessing this exercise and all related documentation, please self-register on this system in advance. Guidance on how to register is available on the gov website at www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/about/procurement