T Levels Qualification - Market Engagement (Wave 2)

The purpose of this PIN is to initiate market engagement and it is not being used as a call for competition. This PIN is intended to:

1. Inform the market of the upcoming procurement process for the Wave 2 T Levels, being commissioned by the Institute for Apprenticeships (and therefore enable the market / potential suppliers to begin to plan for this); and
2. Advise as to the upcoming forthcoming market engagement events which will be held on: Wednesday 16 January 2019 at 10:00-17:00. This event will be held at ETC venues, One Drummond Gate, Victoria, London SW1V 2QQ and Thursday 17 January 2019 for a dedicated session on "Approach to Consortia", held at Mills and Reeves, 24 Monument Street, London EC3R 8AJ (timings TBC). Further information is provided in the Information Memorandum accessible at https://procontract.due-north.com/Register

Additional information:

It is planned that the Institute will be the contracting authority, subject to commencement of the relevant provisions of the Technical and Further Education Act 2017. References to the Institute should be read with this in mind. The alternative is that it will be the Department for Education until commencement of the relevant provisions. This will be clarified in due course.

T Levels are a new system of Technical Education that would introduce a high quality technical option alongside an academic option for students aged 16 to 19. This is the recommendation by the Independent Panel on Technical Education - the Sainsbury report. The Sainsbury Report also recommended that a single body or consortium should deliver each qualification under an "exclusive licence" that would be awarded for a fixed time period following open competition. The purpose of the proposed procurement will be to select and appoint an Awarding Organisation (AO) (or AOs) to be responsible for developing and delivering each of the Wave 2 T Levels qualifications, under an exclusive licensing approach. The expected scope of the role of the AO(s) is that it/they would be responsible for:

• designing the content of the qualification;
• upskilling providers (further education schools and colleges);
• provision of learning and teaching materials;
• updating content; and
• qualification assessment services.

Further information on the proposed procurement is provided in the Information Memorandum accessible at https://procontract.due-north.com/Register

It is envisaged that any resulting contract (or contracts) would be a public services concession contract (or contracts) and that accordingly the procurement will be governed by the Concession Contracts Regulations 2016, to the extent that the same apply to those services to which such contract (or contracts) would relate.

It is a mandatory requirement that the potential supplier who is selected to provide the services under this procurement must be recognised by Ofqual to deliver the relevant Technical Qualification at the point of contract award. The applicable Ofqual criteria for recognition can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criteria-for-recognition.