Invitation to tender External Audit Services

Invitation to tender for the provision of External Audit Services for the Leasehold Advisory Service and Lease Conferences Ltd.

The Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE) is an Executive Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) funded by government for the provision of free advice on residential leasehold law in England and Wales. LEASE also advises the public on Park Homes legislation. The principal sponsor is the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and there are supplemental contributions from the Welsh Government (WG). LEASE supplements its grant funding with commercial income earned through its wholly owned subsidiary, Lease Conferences Ltd (LC).

Leasehold and park homes law are both complex and our advisory staff are all legally qualified. We deal with around 30,000 personal enquiries a year. Advice is in the main delivered online through our website (www.lease-advice.org), but a substantial proportion of enquiries also come to us by telephone, letter, personal visits to our office in Salisbury Square, London and outreach events across England and Wales.

With the intention of removing reliance on public funding, in order to sustain free advice services, LEASE has developed a commercial revenue stream through the provision of training, seminars and conferences on the relevant areas as well as through directly charging leasehold and park home practitioners for initial advice (written and by telephone), advertising and a practitioner's directory on the website.

The external auditors of LEASE will be appointed by LEASE's Board, following recommendations from the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee (ARC). There is a presumption throughout the public sector that audit contracts are put out to competition every three years, and LEASE, as an NDPB, intends to follow this practice. In addition, after the end of each accounting year and before reappointing the external auditor for a further accounting year, LEASE will carry out a review of the audit in terms of quality, cost and independence.