Health and social work services

Tender description

Further to VEAT notice 2019/S 150-370972 issued 6 August 2019, DWP is announcing its intention to enter into a Variation of the HDAS contract with the incumbent supplier. The contract Variation provides for an extension up to 2 years, 1 August 2021-31 July 2023. On 2 April 2014 DWP advertised the contract in Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) (reference 2014/S 065-111189) for an initial period of 3 years with option to extend for further 2 years. Service delivery commenced 1 March 2015. DWP exercised its option to extend by 2 years, with variation being signed 22 September 2017 and due to expire 29 February 2020. On 6 August 2019, DWP published a voluntary ex-ante transparency notice (2019/S 150-370972) extending this contract for an additional period of 17 months to expire on 31 July 2021. The contract relates to provision of 'social and other specific services' within the meaning of Schedule 3 Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR) and critical to provision of statutory ‘ESA’, Universal Credit and other benefits. On the 5 March 2020 DWP published a prior information notice (PIN) signalling its intent to re-procure this contract in accordance with Section 7 of the PCR. Within days of this, the Covid-19 Pandemic hit the UK and significantly impacted DWP including delivery of health assessments and the planned procurement. The impact of Covid-19 means we have not been able to launch the procurement as planned. Extension to the existing contract is needed to fully understand and evaluate the impacts of Covid-19 ahead of future procurements as well as to stabilise the assessment service and resource. The impact of Covid-19 has been, and continues to be, very significant. The assessment service has had to be very quickly adapted, in particular to suspend face to face assessments, and mobilise alternative methods of delivery to support claimants. Alongside this departmental and supplier staff and resources have had to be restructured and redeployed to help deliver DWP and the wider government’s operational response to Covid-19. DWP has also consulted with the market on the impacts of Covid-19. Given that Work Capability Assessments (WCA) undertaken as part of the Contract Services support critical statutory welfare benefits catering for vulnerable people, a gap in service provision is not an option. DWP therefore consider it necessary to explore options to extend the contract for 2 years in order to: (i) stabilise the assessment service; (ii) ensure a continuous service for these complex and vitally important services, which support delivery of statutory welfare benefits to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable claimants each year; and (iii) allow DWP to fully understand and evaluate the impacts of Covid-19 on the assessment services we require of the market ahead of future procurements. DWP intends to continue engaging with the market to discuss the future transition of HDAS and the future of health assessments more broadly. DWP will build in periodic reviews (4-6 monthly) to understand the developing Covid impact on the extensions we intend to put in place. This will support identifying whether longer or shorter extensions than 24 months are needed.