CONTRACT NOTICE – OFFICIAL JOURNAL

Section I: Contracting Authority

I.1)

Name, Address and Contact Point(s)

I.2)

Type of contracting Authority and Main Activity or Activities

Other (Please specify) Central Purchasing Body

General public services Defence Public order and safety Environment Economic and financial affairs Health Housing and community amenities Social protection Recreation, culture and religion Education

Section II: Object of the Contract

II.1)

Description

II.1.1)

Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority

II.1.2(a))

Type of works contract

II.1.2(b))

Type of supplies contract

II.1.2(c))

Type of service contract

II.1.2)

Main site or location of works, place of delivery or performance

Across the United Kingdom, excluding Northern Ireland.

II.1.3)

This notice involves

A public contract
The setting up of a Dynamic Purchasing System
The establishment of a framework agreement

II.1.4)

Information on framework agreement (if applicable)

Framework agreement with a single operators
Framework agreement with several operators

Number of participants to the framework agreement envisaged

Duration of the framework agreement

Justification for a framework agreement the duration of which exceeds four years

Estimated total value of purchases for the entire duration of the framework agreement

Frequency and value of the contracts to be awarded

II.1.5)

Short description of the contract or purchase(s)

** this tender is only accessible via the on-line tender portal www.cirrustenders.co.uk **

Please do not contact the Cirrus consortium to request tender documentation, log on to www.cirrustenders.co.uk to access the tender directly.

The Cirrus Consortium (The Consortium) is a procurement consortium that currently consists of in excess of 50 members including Registered Providers of Social Housing, Local Authorities, ALMOs and NHS Trusts. Members are based across England, Wales and Scotland, with additional organisations joining the consortium on a regular basis. As contracting authorities access the frameworks available from the Consortium, they are allowed Membership to the Consortium, giving them active input into the Central Purchasing Body.

The Consortium is managed on behalf of the Membership by Cirrus Purchasing Ltd, a specialist purchasing and supply consultancy supporting the social housing, public and private sectors.

The Consortium is seeking bids from service providers to participate in an agency labour and recruitment services framework covering the following lots (non-exhaustive examples of roles included in each lot are provided in brackets):

— Lot 1: Administration (including clerical staff, personal assistants and office support staff)

— Lot 2: Contact centre staff (including helpdesk personnel and helpdesk team leaders)

— Lot 3: Trade operatives across all trades (including plumbers, heating engineers, electricians, joiners and labourers)

— Lot 4: IT staff (including IT technical support staff, IT helpdesk staff, IT systems engineers and management and director level IT roles)

— Lot 5: Finance staff (including management accountants, purchase ledger staff, procurement staff and management and director level finance roles)

— Lot 6: Human Resources staff (including HR officers, HR admin staff, health and safety officers and management and director level HR roles)

— Lot 7: Asset Management staff (including asset managers, surveyors, development staff and management and director level asset management roles)

— Lot 8: Housing Services staff (including housing officers, welfare benefit support officers, scheme managers and management and director level housing services roles)

— Lot 9: Executive Directors, board members and technical roles

— Lot 10: Master vendor (delivering all roles covered in Lots 1-9)

— Lot 11: Neutral vendor (delivering all roles covered in Lots 1-9)

Bidders can bid on 1 or more lots.

Bidders who are submitting for lots 10 and/or 11 must be able to provide personnel covering all roles identified in lots 1 to 9. Bidders may use subcontracted agencies to meet this condition if required.

Successful bidders will be required to provide a range of agency labour & recruitment services to Consortium members including, but not limited to:

— Temporary staff placements,

— Staff on a temporary to fixed term basis,

— Staff on a temporary to permanent basis,

— Recruitment of permanent staff positions,

— Interim placements (higher level staff positions).

For lots 1-9, successful bidders will not necessarily be required to provide all of the above services as requirements will be assessed on an individual basis for specific positions by individual Consortium members. Successful bidders who are awarded a place on lots 10 and 11 will however be required to provide all of the above services.

The framework is to cover the full range of roles required by consortium members including, but not limited to those listed in lots 1-9. From time to time, Consortium members may also access the agency labour & recruitment services offered under the framework to fulfil additional roles not explicitly named in lots 1-9.

The framework is available for use by all contracting authorities (as defined by Regulation 3 of the UK statutory instrument Public Contracts Regulations 2006 #5), particularly Registered Providers of Social Housing within England and Wales (as defined by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008), Registered Social Landlords within Scotland (as defined by the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010), local authorities and NHS Trusts across the UK. The framework is also available for use by all current and future members of the Cirrus Consortium.

The framework agreement is to be 4 years in duration from the commencement date. The anticipated commencement of the framework will be during April 2015.

This framework is to cover call-off contracts made within England, Scotland and Wales, but excludes Northern Ireland. For the avoidance of doubt, trading and invoicing relationships will be directly between the relevant framework suppliers and the relevant contracting authorities.

The estimated value of work over the framework period will be in the region of GBP 40 000 000 excluding VAT. However, this is an estimate only and the potential maximum value could significantly exceed this value. This is for information only, and no guarantees are given, nor are implied as to the value of business that will be placed with successful bidders participating in the resulting framework agreement. There is no separate information available on the estimated levels of expenditure in each lot.

The proposed framework will consist of approximately 10-30 service providers per lot for lots 1 to 10, and 8-15 service providers for lot 11.

This contract notice has been issued as a voluntary transparency notice. This tender is being undertaken as a Part B service as defined by Schedule 3 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 #5.

II.1.6)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

II.1.7)

Contract covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)

II.1.8)

Division into lots

one lot only

one or more lots

all lots

II.1.9)

Will variants be accepted

II.2)

Quantity or Scope of the Contract

II.2.1)

Total quantity or scope

II.2.2)

Options

Provisional timetable for recourse to these options

Number of possible renewals

In the case of renewable supplies or service contracts, estimated time frame for subsequent contracts

II.3)

Duration of the contract or limit for completion

Section III: Legal, Economic, Financial and Technical Information

III.1)

Conditions Relating to the Contract

III.1.1)

Deposits and guarantees required

III.1.2)

Main Terms of financing and payment and/or reference to the relevant provisions

As per tender documentation.

III.1.3)

Legal form to be taken by the grouping of suppliers, contractors or service providers to whom the contract is to be awarded

Lead service provider with nominated sub-contract partners.

III.1.4)

Other particular conditions to which the performance of the contract is subject

III.2)

Conditions for Participation

III.2.1)

Personal situation of economic operators, including requirements relating to enrolment on professional or trade registers

Any supplier may be disqualified who has been convicted of:

(a) conspiracy within the meaning of section 1 or 1A of the Criminal Law Act 1977(a) or article 9 or 9A of the Criminal Attempts and Conspiracy (Northern Ireland) Order 1983(b) where that conspiracy relates to participation in a criminal organisation as defined in Article 2 of Council Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA(c);

(b) corruption within the meaning of section 1(2) of the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889(d) or section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906(e), where the offence relates to active corruption;

(c) the offence of bribery, where the offence relates to active corruption;

(ca) bribery within the meaning of section 1 or 6 of the Bribery Act 2010(f);

(d) fraud, where the offence relates to fraud affecting the European Communities' financial interests as defined by Article 1 of the Convention on the protection of the financial interests of the European Communities(g), within the meaning of—

(i) the offence of cheating the Revenue;

(ii) the offence of conspiracy to defraud;

(iii) fraud or theft within the meaning of the Theft Act 1968(h), the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969(i), the Theft Act 1978(j) or the Theft (Northern Ireland) Order 1978(k);

(iv) fraudulent trading within the meaning of section 458 of the Companies Act 1985(a), article 451 of the Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1986(b) or section 993 of the Companies Act 2006(c);

(v) fraudulent evasion within the meaning of section 170 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979(d) or section 72 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994(e);

(vi) an offence in connection with taxation in the European Union within the meaning of section 71 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993(f);

(vii) destroying, defacing or concealing of documents or procuring the execution of a valuable security within the meaning of section 20 of the Theft Act 1968(g) or section 19 of the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969(h);

(viii) fraud within the meaning of section 2, 3 or 4 of the Fraud Act 2006(i); or (ix) making,

adapting, supplying or offering to supply articles for use in frauds within the meaning of section 7 of the Fraud Act 2006;

(e) money laundering within the meaning of section 340(11) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002(j);

(ea) an offence in connection with the proceeds of criminal conduct within the meaning of section 93A, 93B or 93C of the Criminal Justice Act 1988(k) or article 45, 46 or 47 of the Proceeds of Crime (Northern Ireland) Order 1996(l);

(eb) an offence in connection with the proceeds of drug trafficking within the meaning of section 49, 50 or 51 of the Drug Trafficking Act 1994(m); or

(f) any other offence within the meaning of Article 45(1) of the Public Sector Directive as defined by the national law of any relevant State.

III.2.2)

Economic and financial capacity

III.2.3)

Technical capacity

III.2.4)

Reserved contracts

The contract is restricted to sheltered workshops
The execution of the contract is restricted to the framework of sheltered employment programmes

Section IV: Procedure

IV.1)

Type of Procedure

Open		Restricted
Accelerated restricted		Negotiated
Accelerated negotiated		Competitive dialogue

Justification for the choice of accelerated procedure

IV.1.1)

Have candidates already been selected?

IV.1.2)

Limitations on the number of operators who will be invited to tender or to participate

Objective criteria for choosing the limited number of candidates

IV.1.3)

Reduction of the number of operators during the negotiation or dialogue

Recourse to staged procedure to gradually reduce the number of solutions to be discussed or tenders to be negotiated

IV.2)

Award Criteria

IV.2.2)

An electronic auction will be used

IV.3 Administrative Information

IV.3.1)

Reference number attributed to the notice by the contracting authority

IV.3.2)

Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract

Prior Information Notice
Notice on a Buyer Profile

Other previous publications

IV.3.3)

Conditions for obtaining specifications and additional documents

IV.3.4)

Time-limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate

IV.3.5)

Date of dispatch of invitations to tender or to participate to selected candidates

IV.3.6)

Language or languages in which tenders or requests to participate can be drawn up

IV.3.7)

Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender 

IV.3.8)

Conditions for opening tenders

Cirrus Purchasing Ltd staff members only on behalf of the Cirrus Consortium.

Section VI: Other Information

VI.1)

Indicate whether this procurement is a recurrent one and the Estimated timing for further notices to be published

VI.2)

Does the contract relate to a Project/Programme financed by Community Funds?

VI.3)

Additional Information

The Cirrus Consortium is seeking bids from service providers to participate in an agency labour and recruitment services framework. This framework is to cover call-off contracts made within England, Scotland and Wales, but excludes Northern Ireland. The framework is available for use by all contracting authorities (as defined by Regulation 3 of the UK statutory instrument Public Contracts Regulations 2006/5), but particularly Registered Providers of Social Housing within England and Wales (as defined by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008), Registered Social Landlords within Scotland (as defined by the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010), local authorities and NHS Trusts across the UK. The framework is also available for use by all current and future members of the Cirrus Consortium.

VI.4)

Procedures for appeal

VI.4.1)

Body responsible for appeal procedures

Body responsible for mediation procedures

VI.4.2)

Lodging of appeals
Precise information on deadline(s) for lodging appeals:

This tender process will incorporate a minimum 10 calendar day standstill period at the point information on the award of the framework is communicated to tenderers. This period allows successful tenderers to seek further debriefing from The Cirrus Consortium before the framework is entered into. Tenderers can raise appeals directly with the Cirrus Consortium via the contact points detailed in section I.1 of this contract notice. If an appeal regarding the award of the framework has not successfully been resolved between the tenderer and The Cirrus Consortium then the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (SI 2006 No 5) provide for aggrieved parties who have been harmed or are at risk of harm by a breach of the rules to take action in the High Court (England, Wales and Northern Ireland).

VI.4.3)

Service from which information about the lodging of appeals may be obtained

VI.5)

Dispatch date of this Notice

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

Unknown.

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

Unknown.

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots