New National Park(s) - Support for Nominating Groups

Tender description

The Scottish Government is seeking to establish market interest and obtain information relevant to the upcoming requirement for the provision of support services to new National Park nominating groups. Please see section II.2.4 for details on the requirement and section VI.3 for details on the Request for Information (RFI). The Scottish Government intends to run an open procurement procedure to award a contract to at least one Service Provider to provide impartial, local support to community groups and organisations across Scotland seeking to nominate their area for designation as a new National Park. The contract is expected to cover a period of seven months from October 2023. As stated above, the Scottish Government is seeking to establish market interest and obtain information relevant to this requirement. The support services are expected to include providing liaison between nominating groups and the Scottish Government New National Park(s) team, organising and facilitating community engagement and participation events, including logistical support as well as stakeholder identification and mapping. Additionally, advising nominating groups on the nominations process for new National Parks and interpreting the appraisal criteria and support with development of the new National Park proposals are anticipated to be required as part of the services. We intend to seek bids from Service Providers with the appropriate skills, experience and expertise to undertake the services. Bids can be submitted by individual Service Providers or collaborations / consortiums, however, if there is a collaborative bid there must be one lead organisation. Please also note that while this notice states that the requirement is not split into lots, lotting may still be applied and is subject to the level of market interest and review of the information obtained from the Request for Information (RFI). Further background information on the New National Park(s) project can be found in the attached document within this notice, and includes a link to the RFI questionnaire which Service Providers are invited to respond to via Microsoft Forms. Please see section VI.3 of this notice for the direct link to the online RFI.