Tailored Learning Open Framework 2025

Procurement reference

DN777117

Procurement description

Nottinghamshire County Council (the Council) receives an annual grant from the Department for Education (DfE) via East Midlands Combined County Authority (EMCCA) to fund Community and Family Learning for adults aged 19+ in Nottinghamshire. The Council uses this Grant to ensure that local people have access to a range of flexible learning opportunities that contribute to their personal, social, educational and economic development. The vast majority of provision is delivered directly to the public via the Council's Contract with Inspire Learning. In addition to the contract to deliver direct services, the Council has appointed Inspire Learning to act as its agent and coordinate and manage supplementary contractors that deliver specialist provision that they do not deliver themselves.

Nottinghamshire County Council is seeking organisations who:

• are able to provide high quality Tailored Learning to adults over the age of 19 in Nottinghamshire. This provision should principally be courses that Inspire Learning is unable to deliver themselves;

• if subject to Ofsted inspections, their most recent inspection was graded Good (grade 2) or better;

• are not currently subject to a DfE notice to improve linked to their financial performance.

• will not be in receipt of Adult Skills Fund funding for the 2025-26 academic year; and

• directly deliver services.

Subcontracting is not allowed.

Providers are invited to tender for contracts for the following Community Learning provision:

• General Adult Learning

• Family Learning

• Discrete provision for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities (LLDD)

Is a framework being established?

Yes

Is this an open framework scheme?

Yes

Nottinghamshire County Council

CREATIVE PATHS (EM) CIC

GET WISE ENTERPRISE C.I.C.

THE HARLEY FOUNDATION

LIFE EDUCATION EAST MIDLANDS LIMITED

REACH LEARNING DISABILITY

Procedure type

Open procedure

Is this procurement under a special regime?

Light touch

Percentage fee charged to suppliers

0%

Open framework scheme end date (estimated)

31 July 2026, 23:59PM

Award method when using the framework

With reopening competition

Framework operation description

The scores for all criteria will be totalled to give an overall score for each lot. The Council intends to select the bidders that meet or exceed the minimum thresholds, for both Quality and the overall score as its successful bidders and place them on the framework. Those successful Framework providers will be ranked by their scores. Provider ranking will be used as part of the award criteria for allocation of Contracts.

There is no guarantee that providers that successfully make it on to the framework will be allocated any or all of the courses they are bidding for. We expect that in some circumstances there may be more providers than we can fund given the limited resources available.

The Council will decide on how the provision for each Lot will be allocated to successful Providers by considering the following criteria to co-ordinate a balanced curriculum and avoid unnecessary duplication:

• Quality 80%

• Price/ Value for money 20%

The following factors are also taken into account:

• Learner needs

• Course content

• Course location

• Maximum Contract value

Overall ranking

The highest ranked provider in each Lot will be the provider that has the highest combined score of Quality & Price (Weight 80% Quality and 20% Price). Commissioners will work down the ranked list of providers for each Lot until the budget has been exhausted.

Scoring the Pricing Response

The following weighting shall be applied to price:

- Total Gross Cost - 25 marks

- Gross Cost per Enrolment (Total Gross Cost/Total Enrolments) - 25 marks

- Gross Cost per Course Hour per Enrolment (Gross Cost per Course Hour/Average Class Size) - 25 marks

- Gross Cost per Course Hour (Total Gross Cost/Total Sector Subject Hours) - 25 marks

Price will be evaluated based on a maximum of 25 marks per sub-criteria for the lowest priced compliant bid (subject always to the provisions noted above in relation to abnormally low tenders). Other bids will be awarded a number of points in direct proportion to the relation between their bid and the lowest bid.

The Council reserves the right to use its discretion to pass over a supplier in a lot if there is a duplication of Course content, location or learner needs. Where a supplier is bidding for multiple Lots, the Council reserves the right to allocate Lots in any order when calculating the maximum contract value.