Civic betterment and community facility support services

Tender description

— Communication of national policy messages and provision of advice to government based on wide knowledge and understanding of SEND stakeholders, including parents and their views, including facilitating policy input from young people with SEND, — Provision of a national helpline to provide advice to families of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and sharing of materials from that helpline to local advice services, — Training, development and support to local authority SEND Information, Advice and Support Services (SENDIASS), — Payment of funding and grant monitoring for parent carer forums in 152 local authority areas, — Development support to local parent carer forums, particularly to ensure co-production at a local level, grow their reach and increase membership from under-represented groups e.g. BAME, low income families, — Development support and training to local authorities to help grow children and young people’s participation at a local level. The potential competition is expected to commence in October 2020 for the provision which is due to run for up to three years from April 2021. The department plans to run a pre-market engagement event to help shape the provision requirements. In light of the current COVID-19 outbreak information on how this event will run will be provided at a later date. We wish to test market views on areas such as: — do you believe you have the capacity to successfully manage this potential opportunity? — do you have any other provision/contracts/grants with any other government department? — what are their thoughts on potentially submitting upcoming tender responses, being awarded and managing future SEND provisions within DfE? — do you feel there are any issues or challenges with expressing an interest in any upcoming opportunities? — how would you see your business model working with the proposed tendering opportunity? Also, what do you believe are the main cost pressures if this provision/opportunity was managed? — do you feel the estimated costings given are sufficient/too low/too high to manage the potential provision accordingly? — do you believe a combined contract of this scale is workable, or would competition increase if it were broken down into smaller constituent parts? — with the DfE and all government departments driving for continual efficiencies, forward looking challenges/risks and delivering savings, do you feel these requirements are achievable? — would you expect to submit a tender as a single supplier, consortium, framework, lots, managed service or any other appropriate vehicle?