Prior information notice
This notice is for prior information only
Section I: Contracting
authority
I.1) Name and addresses
Department for Work and Pensions
Commercial Directorate, Employment Category, Third Floor, Hartshead Square
Sheffield
S1 2FD
UK
E-mail: cd.fidelityassurance@dwp.gov.uk
NUTS: UK
Internet address(es)
Main address: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions
I.2) Joint procurement
The contract is awarded by a central purchasing body
I.3) Communication
Additional information can be obtained from the abovementioned address
Electronic communication requires the use of tools and devices that are not generally available. Unrestricted and full direct access to these tools and devices is possible, free of charge, at:
https://dwp.bravosolutions.co.uk
I.4) Type of the contracting authority
Ministry or any other national or federal authority, including their regional or local subdivisions
I.5) Main activity
Other: Employment
Section II: Object
II.1) Scope of the procurement
II.1.1) Title
Contract for the provision of Fidelity Assurance
II.1.2) Main CPV code
80000000
II.1.3) Type of contract
Services
II.1.4) Short description
These services relate to “light touch services” as set out in Schedule 1 to the Procurement Regulations 2024, using common procurement vocabulary (CPV) codes and will be procured using the Open Procedure, as a light touch contract.
This Procurement will be conducted in accordance with the Procurement Act 2023.
Connect to Work will be delivered using two of the most recognised quality standards for supported employment: IPS and SEQF. Both models have fidelity scales. The fidelity scales will comprise of scored assessments of the two models according to IPS and SEQF fidelity scales, a full report, the facilitation of local and national communities of practice to share best practice, and additional support to assist the refinement of the action plan. Assessments are to be conducted in person per delivery area across England and Wales through the collection of documentation, observations and discussions.
A Market Engagement Session 2 is due to take place on 12/02/2025.
It is estimated that the Tender Notice will be published, and all Tender Document be made available on 07/03/2025 and a Tender launch event is due to take place on 10/03/2025
It is anticipated that the Tender Notice for this requirement will be published after the Procurement Act 2023 effective date of 24 February 2025.
II.1.5) Estimated total value
Value excluding VAT:
11 750 000.00
GBP
II.1.6) Information about lots
This contract is divided into lots:
No
II.2) Description
II.2.2) Additional CPV code(s)
75112000
75121000
75122000
75130000
80500000
80510000
80522000
II.2.3) Place of performance
NUTS code:
UKC
UKD
UKE
UKF
UKG
UKH
UKI
UKJ
UKK
UKL
II.2.4) Description of the procurement
Engaging with the market allows the Authority to gather valuable insights into the health of the market, facilitates market input to shape and test the design of Fidelity Assurance requirement to ensure deliverability and increase understanding of the policy intent to deliver value for money.
The Authority was due to hold a pre-market engagement event on 06/06/2024. All commercial activity was paused because of the UK General Election on 04/07/2024, and the engagement event was cancelled.
An Early Market Engagement Notice was published on 15/11/2024 to seek expressions of interest for the Preliminary Market Engagement Session 1 which was held on 09/12/2024. Documentation relating to the market engagement session and future market engagement sessions are stored, and accessible free of charge via a Virtual Data Room.
Market Engagement Session 2 is due to take place on 12/02/2025.It is estimated that the Tender Notice will be published, and all Tender Document be made available on 07/03/2025 and a Tender launch event is due to take place on 10/03/2025 which will be an opportunity to raise any questions early in the Competitive Tendering Procedure. It is anticipated that Suppliers will have 25 days to prepare and submit Tenders.
Suppliers will be required to register their organisation on a Central Digital Platform, which is an enhancement to the existing Find A Tender service prior to responding to the Invitation To Tender. This will require the Supplier to provide core supplier information. This includes: basic information, economic and financial standing, connected person information and exclusion information.
There will be eligibility questions and conditions of participation (where applicable) in the Qualification Envelope and as specified in the Procurement Specific Questionnaire (PSQ)
All tenders which meet the conditions of participation as set out in the PSQ will be evaluated in accordance with the criteria specified in the Technical Envelope and Commercial Envelope.
The award criteria will be based on the most advantageous tender (MAT) using a Price per Quality Point (PQP) model, which assesses the quantitative relationship between the Supplier’s quality score and price. The Authority will produce a final ranking of the Tender Responses considering any adjustments made following any clarifications by the Authority.
Completion of a Contract Cost Register (CCR) documentation and supporting assumptions must be completed using the electronic spreadsheet which will be provided as part of the Tender documentation.
A Financial Viability Risk Assessment (FVRA) template will also need to be completed, to assess the financial capacity of a Supplier and highlight any potential financial risks to the Authority in contracting with that Supplier.
The name and weighting of the quality criteria may be subject to change. The weighting associated with each quality criterion may be subject to change in value and/or order of precedence.
In accordance with section 43 of the Procurement Act 2023, the Authority reserves the right to switch from a competitive tendering procedure to the direct award of the Fidelity Assurance contract where no or no suitable tenders have been received in that competitive tendering procedure and the Authority considers that the award of a contract using the competitive tendering procedure under section 19 is not possible.
The Authority confirms that, prior to the issue of the Prior Information Notice in this procurement, a conflict assessment has been prepared in accordance with the Procurement Act 2023.
The Authority has considered whether the Services could reasonably be supplied under more than one contract by dividing the procurement into lots based on geographical area. The Authority has concluded that splitting the procurement into lots could make the requirement disproportionately expensive to manage and increase the technical risk to deliver the requirement. The Services will be under one contract
II.2.14) Additional information
This procurement will be conducted as a light touch contract using the Open Procedure in accordance with the Procurement Act 2023.
II.3) Estimated date of publication of contract notice:
07/03/2025
Section IV: Procedure
IV.1) Description
IV.1.8) Information about Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement:
Yes
Section VI: Complementary information
VI.3) Additional information
This PIN is being published for information purposes only in order to notify potential bidders of the supplier event detailed above and proposed procurement opportunity that will be set out in the Tender Notice, anticipated to be issued in early March 2025.
All information set out in this PIN, including the nature and extent of the services, as well as the timing and nature of the proposed procurement, could be subject to change.
DWP is not liable for any costs incurred by potential bidders in expressing an interest or in participating in the supplier event. DWP reserves the right to cancel or change the market engagement event and/or the proposed procurement (or any part of it) at its discretion.
DWP expressly reserves the rights
(i) to use a reverse auction;
(ii) to cancel this procurement at any stage;
(iii) to not award any contract as a result of the procurement process commenced by publication of this notice;
(iv) and in no circumstances will DWP be liable for any costs incurred by potential suppliers.
Suppliers Instructions:
How to Express Interest in this Tender:
DWP uses the eProcurement portal Jaggaer (formerly Bravo Solution) to conduct all Commercial activities. If not already registered on this portal, registration is required.
The next Market Engagement Session will be held on 12 February 2025 10:00 – 11:30. The session will provide further information relating to the delivery requirements including sharing details of the draft specification.
Enquiries relating to the exercise should be directed to cd.fidelityassurance@dwp.gov.uk
For technical assistance with the DWP eSourcing Portal please contact the central support team using the details provided on the portal homepage.
If you would like to attend the event at 10:00 on Wednesday 12th February 2025, you should register your organisation by 05/02/2025 via the following link https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk and click the link to register
- Accept the terms & conditions and click 'continue'
- Enter the correct business and user details
- Note the chosen username and click 'Save'.
An email will be received with the applicable password. Please keep this secure.
The Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, PQQ_28950 is for registering of interest in the Early Market Engagement only. The questionnaire will consist of a selection of questions relating to attendance to the event. Organisations who previously registered an interest in attending an Early Market Engagement Session, have been automatically registered to participate on 12/02/2025.
For those organisations who have been automatically registered and no longer wish to attend or there have been changes in the attendees, please notify DWP through the messaging facility within PQQ_28950
A Virtual Data Room will be used by the Department as a document and data repository in order to share information in respect of and related to Fidelity Assurance. Information will be shared on an iterative basis to enable transparency, this may include draft versions of documentation.
How to access the Virtual Data Room:
1. Register on the eSourcing portal
2. Navigating to File Sharing – from the menu icons on the left, select ‘File Sharing / Files / Directories’
Important: Please read the File Sharing good practice guidance before using the File Sharing module in Jaggaer. This guidance is uploaded to the file sharing directory called ’00. 01 Read BEFORE Using Fileshare’.
3. Navigating to Directories - A list of available directories will be displayed. To locate a specific directory, scroll down the page OR use the ‘Enter Filter’ dropdown to do a simple search OR use the ‘Search Directories’ tab to do a more advance search. The Directory for the Virtual Data Room is titled ‘Fidelity Assurance Virtual Data Room (VDR)’.
The ‘Market Engagement’ folder will include generic supporting information.
VI.5) Date of dispatch of this notice
27/01/2025