Early Market Engagement Evaluation of the Shared Outcomes Fund 'Offshore Wind Enabling Actions Programme'

Tender description

The Offshore Wind Enabling Actions Programme (OWEAP) aims to support the deployment of offshore wind in line with ambitious government targets for renewable power, while protecting and enhancing the marine environment. The collective aim of OWEAP is: ‘To enable the responsible and sustainable growth of offshore wind, recognising its essential contribution to meeting the Government’s climate change commitments, whilst ensuring the protection of our marine environment’. OWEAP has two objectives: i. increase understanding of the environmental impacts of offshore wind ii. find strategic solutions to manage and mitigate impacts to reduce barriers The procurement for the Evaluation of OWEAP aims to provide the programme team with evidence of whether and how OWEAP is achieving it’s desired outputs and outcomes, by observing the process and measuring the impact. The evaluation will also provide useful information as to whether the programme has delivered value for money. Lot 1: As a research and evidence project, the aims of the procurement are to: Aim 1 – Capture valuable learning from OWEAP, as a pioneering programme tackling the dual challenges of expansion of offshore wind and the protection and enhancement of the marine environment. Aim 2 – Quantify the impact of OWEAP, including the contribution of evidence from each project and assess OWEAP’s influence at a programme level on associated policy: Objective 1 - Design and implement a practical and adaptive evaluation framework for OWEAP. Objective 2 – Use process and impact evaluation techniques to report on key learning gained through the implementation of OWEAP Objective 3 – Measure the impact of the OWEAP programme against cross-programme outcomes Objective 4 - Measure the impact of the OWEAP projects against their specific desired outcomes. Objective 5 - Address the longer-term impacts by reporting on how OWEAP contributed to and has influenced the attainment of principles set out in government policies. Objective 6 - Assess whether the OWEAP programme provided Value-For-Money. Objective 7 - Identify outstanding knowledge gaps and use evidence from OWEAP on what worked or did not work to provide recommendations of future cross-government work to tackle the dual challenges of offshore wind energy expansion and protection and restoration of the marine environment. Objective 8 - Produce and present talks and reports, suited to the audience, to share learning from the evaluation. Additional information: The Contracting Authority intends to use an eTendering system in this procurement exercise and reserves the right to use a reverse auction. A contract notice starting the award procedure is expected to be issued on 10th September 2021. For further details on the supplier engagement event, please refer to section VI.3