Business Support Services for Third Sector Organisations

Tender description

This prior information notice is to inform the market that Scottish Government intends to publish a procurement in order to seek a supplier to provide business support services to Third Sector Organisations in Scotland. As part of the pre-procurement process the Scottish Government is seeking views and information from the market in connection with the required services to help inform the procurement strategy and scope of the Contract. Since June 2011, free specialist business support has been available nationally to the enterprising Third Sector funded by the Scottish Government. The contract for delivering business support for the Third Sector plugs the gap for the many small and medium-sized social enterprise organisations across the country that would be unable to access mainstream business support. Specialist business support for the third sector means support that is tailored to meet the specific needs of the sector, for example, around charitable trading, social enterprise and community-led business planning and may include advice on topics such as: - Start-up support. - Post Start up support. - Business skills and competencies. - Growth and financial sustainability. - Leadership training and development. - Business recovery and resilience. - Pre-investment support, financial planning. - Procurement and technical tendering support. - Support for marketing/communications and digital/online services. - Capacity building for a wider range of equalities groups - Social impact measurement advice. - International awareness raising and capacity building. - Event facilitation. The bespoke service offers one-to-one advice from business advisors, as well as one-to-many workshops on specialist topics and is viewed as an exemplar service internationally. Through Scotland’s Social Enterprise Action Plan 2021-2024, the Scottish Government has committed to: work with sector partners and national agencies to enhance the national ecosystem of support for new-start social enterprises and a pipeline of support throughout their journey; ensure that our mainstream business support services continue to recognise and appropriately support social enterprises, while at the same time enhancing specialist provision. The current contract expires in May 2023 and the Scottish Government will aim to invite tenders for the next generation contract in August/September 2022. This Prior Information Notice is to allow for Suppliers to consider in advance of the launch of the ITT whether they/or their subcontracting consortium have capacity and capability to bid, and to provide potential bidders and those with an interest in the service and how it is delivered, an opportunity to help shape the scope the new contract to ensure it continues to meet the needs of the third sector going forward. To this end, Scottish Government invite interested parties to complete a short survey, which will be available until Friday 24th June 2022 , the responses of which will be considered and used to shape the scope of the contract and the procurement strategy for these services. See section 11.2.14) Additional information for link to Survey.