Provision of services to the community

Tender description

Individuals returning from the UK can find it hard to reconnect and establish themselves into their local communities. People may need help with a variety of needs — including housing, financial independence, health and psychosocial needs, and re-engaging with others in their locality. Providing a coherent approach to reintegration will support individuals upon return and demonstrates a person-centric immigration system which is responsive to potentially vulnerable people. Such a service will therefore reduce the push-factor for irregular re-migration upon return and will increase the capacity of countries to accept their returning nationals. This will demonstrate the UK’s commitment to implement the Global Compact for Migration objectives. The authority is seeking to work with commercial partner(s) to provide reintegration services for people returning from the UK to their countries of origin. The authority aims to support a range of returnees (voluntary or enforced) from across the immigration system, potentially including Foreign National Offenders (FNOs). The term of the contract will be 3 years, beginning on the 1 April 2021 and ending on the 31 March. Initially, the countries in scope for this service are: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, China, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Iran, Jamaica, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. The authority is exploring the method in which this service may be delivered. The current intention (which is not guaranteed) is for this service to be dis-aggregated, with separate contracts for each lot, possibly split by geographical area. Please see an indicative example below: — Africa: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana; — Middle East: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran; — Europe: Ukraine, Albania and Turkey; — Caribbean: Jamaica; — Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China. We are asking suppliers to provide the authority with an indication of countries or regions in which they would be able to deliver a service. The authority is exploring the type and method in which support will be delivered to returnees, but the service provider may be expected to provide: 1) remote provision of information pre-departure from the UK; 2) assistance on arrival, that could include: • airport pick-up, • arrival assistance and immediate necessities, • onward travel assistance in-country, • emergency/short-term housing, • immediate medical support; 3) cash support and reintegration counselling, that could include: • periodic face-to-face reintegration counselling combined with cash distribution — at least three times over a 6-month period, • availability by phone to provide information/assistance on ad-hoc basis; including: advice on accessing schooling or further education, advice on accessing vocational training, advice on finding employment, family tracing, legal support; 4) reintegration assistance: • coaching, • co-designing a reintegration plan with the returnee that may include using available funds to: — set up an individual or collective small business with other returnees/ integrating the returnee into an existing or new community income generating activity, — paid academic or vocational training, — an apprenticeship, — contribute to living costs while pursuing any of the above options. There is also an ambition to use the service for a small number of selected voluntary returnees, within Albania and India, that also support the wider community. This is something that the authority would like to explore with the market. In other developing countries worldwide, the authority is considering the possibility of providing: 1) verification of the arrival of the returnee (face to face or remotely) to trigger cash disbursement; 2) further telephone only provision of information/assistance on ad-hoc basis.