Growth Service for Businesses in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough

Tender description

This procurement is to establish a Growth service that through a prime contractor/consortia arrangement provides the following: • an inclusive coaching service to support resilience and growth, • an inward investment scheme, • a skills service, • a grants and equity investment administrative service. Lot 1: This procurement is to appoint an organisation to administer — a capital Growth Investment Fund of grants and equity investments, as well as an innovation and relocation grant. The contract is to appoint a single company or prime contractor/consortia type arrangement to support the CPCA in delivering the local industrial strategy by way of four specific areas of growth. These include: • an inclusive growth service: To engage our highest potential growth firms to better support them to accelerate their growth, increase their capacity and capability for growth, sustain their period within growth, or all three. • an inward investment service: To extend our reach into key global markets, to engage and persuade overseas firms to locate into our economy or invest in our strategic projects to increase our employment space, develop our transport infrastructure or establish a new university. • a skills service: To provide an effective brokerage between young talent and those retraining or progressing in a career, our employers and our skills providers, to improve the supply of skills to enable growth. • a capital growth or innovation and relocation grant: To co-invest with small firms in the cost of contracting experts to help either through GBP 50 000 grants or equity investments: — to provide access to R&D funding from UK and EU agencies for new product growth and increased productivity; — to provide access to fast-track planning, partners and investment for new build employment space. These service will be delivered in each of our three subeconomies in a tailored manner to better spread growth more evenly across our total economy. Changes since the previous notice The CPCA is procuring this contract as agent for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Business Growth Company (CPBGC) which is a wholly own subsidiary of the CPCA established for the sole purpose of delivering this contract. The CPCA is in the process of incorporating the CPBGC. The contract will be entered into by the successful bidder and the CPBGC. The CPCA will provide ad-hoc support to the CPBGC during the procurement process and during the term of the contract. Also, a new requirement for FCA Authorisation has been added into the SSQ stage. In addition, the procurement timescales have been extended to address the current commercial challenges surrounding the COVID-19 Pandemic. Finally, we are inviting bidders to consider in their response how they will tailor the delivery of those services (as set out in the existing specification) to take into account the current economic situation and any future, unknown business challenges the local businesses may face in the future caused by the pandemic. Further information is set out in the adaptability and future agility document.