Soft Market Testing - Contract for the Provision of Home to School Transport for Children and Young People with Special Education Needs and Disabilities in the London Borough of Waltham Forest

Tender description

<p>The London Borough of Waltham Forest (&ldquo;the Authority&rdquo;) is undertaking a market engagement exercise to establish the level of interest of organisations to provide home to school transport for children and young people with special educational needs. This is a statutory requirement for local authorities to provide this service. The contract is for the planning, implementation and provision of passenger transport services within the boundaries of Waltham Forest. The scope of this contract covers eligible in-borough children/young people with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND) attending in-borough establishments regardless of their condition or complexity of needs. Our eligible service users attend any of the Waltham Forest educational provisions catering for children and young people from the age of 5-25. Although not statutory, in exceptional circumstances assessed on case by case basis, transport might be awarded to children allocated educational placement before they turn 5. In some circumstances transport to and from respite centres or hospices might be required. A requirement of the contract will be to provide drivers and passenger assistants for all routes. In addition, staff recruited for the service must have relevant training including but not limited to disability awareness, autism awareness, safeguarding, challenging behaviour as well as the role specific qualifications i.e. for PAs. All staff working on this contract must be paid at least the London Living Wage and will be subjected to full compliance checks. If a suitable provider is identified the service will be expected to start from 1st September 2022 however there will be a requirement to work with the Local Authority to plan for September from earlier in the year. Please note that this exercise is intended to assess the level of interest from potential providers, to provide the services outlined above and help inform the service. Your responses are not &ldquo;evaluated&rsquo;&rsquo; or scored as this exercise is not part of a procurement process this is for engagement and development purposes.</p> Keywords: School Transport