Education and training services

Tender description

The Department for Education is seeking to procure an organisation to deliver a programme of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activity, the Early Years Professional Development Fund (“the PDF”). The provision of high quality, evidence-based CPD activity will support pre-reception early years practitioners to improve their practice in working with very young children between the ages of 2 and 4, to improve outcomes in language, literacy and numeracy for the most disadvantaged children, with an emphasis on improving school readiness. This will help meet the Secretary of State’s ambition to halve the percentage of children that finish reception without the expected skills in early communication and reading in the next 10 years (currently at 28 %). This procurement is being carried out in accordance with the open procedure as set out in Public Contract Regulations 2015. Contractors taking part in this competition are deemed to consent to the terms and requirements of this procurement. The specification and the Terms and Conditions, together with any special requirements, will form the basis of the Contract between the successful tenderer and the Secretary of State for Education. The Department is using the DfE e-Tendering Portal for this procurement which means the ITT and the forms for submitting a response are only available in electronic form. Tenderers will be required to submit their response in accordance with the instructions set out in the DfE e-Tendering Portal and the ITT. The information contained in the ITT is designed to ensure that all responses are given equal and fair consideration. The tender process will be conducted in a manner that ensures tenders are evaluated fairly to ascertain the most economically advantageous tender.