Queen’s Awards for Enterprise: Promoting Opportunity Award Assessment Contract

The Queen’s Awards Office manages the contracts for the assessment of the three existing Queen’s Awards categories. This new requirement to assess the new Award will run alongside these existing contracts.

As this a new Award we cannot guarantee the volume of applications and so we have estimated that we will receive between 150 to 200 applications. The contract value is based on that estimate and we expect the breakdown to include a management fee and administration time of allocating applications (aka cases) to assessors and a cost per appraisal. Should we receive more or less applications, we will recalculate the cost using the amount you have bid for per application and issue a revised purchase order to reflect the volume of work undertaken.

During July 2016 the Queen’s Awards Office will be launching a new Award to recognise those who promote social mobility. The purpose of the tender exercise is to procure a contractor to provide technical assessment services for the new Promoting Opportunity Award.

The Queen’s Award for Promoting Opportunity: Will recognise organisations that promote social mobility to help support people to transition from disadvantaged backgrounds into successful working lives.

What is social mobility? Social mobility is the ability of individuals or groups to move upward (or downward) in status based on wealth, occupation, education, or some other social variable.

The contractor will be responsible for the appraisal of all applications (aka cases). Four key outcomes to this process which must be delivered by the deadlines set by the QAO each round are:

• (i)Initial technical assessment of each case to identify a shortlist of possible Award winners and reserve cases;
• (ii)Draft summaries of shortlisted cases and a report to be reviewed and discussed at the Award Judging Panels. NB, Lead assessors must attend these Panels and be prepared to talk about each case.
• (iii)Draft pen pictures of successful applications for inclusion in the Queen’s Awards Press Book
• (iv)Feedback for unsuccessful applications

The contractor must also develop a technical assessment approach and agree it with the QAO and Judging Panel.

This contract is a 1year + optional 1 year

Additional information: UK Shared Business Services eSourcing

As part of the strategic alliance between UK Shared Business Services Ltd (UK SBS) and Crown Commercial Service (CCS), UK SBS can use the CCS eSourcing Suite for future procurements.

If you have not yet registered on the eSourcing Suite, this can be done online at https://gpsesourcing.cabinetoffice.gov.uk by following the link ‘Register for CCS eSourcing’. Please note that, to register, you must have a valid DUNS number (as provided by Dun and Bradstreet) for the organisation which you are registering, who will be entering into a contract if invited to do so.

Once you have registered on the eSourcing Suite, a registered user can express an interest for a specific procurement. This is done by emailing Expressionofinterest@crowncommercial.gov.uk.

Your email must clearly state: the name and reference for the procurement you wish to register for; the name of the registered Bidder; and the name and contact details for the registered individual sending the email.

Crown Commercial Service will process the email and then enable the Bidder to access the procurement online via the e-Sourcing Suite. The registered user will receive a notification email to alert them once this has been done.

The Sourcing documents can then be accessed on the eSourcing Suite at: https://gpsesourcing.cabinetoffice.gov.uk using the instructions detailed in the Specification documents within Contracts Finder.

As a user of the e-Sourcing Suite you will have access to Emptoris email messaging service which facilitates all messages sent to you and from you in relation to any specific RFX event. Please note it is your responsibility to access these emails on a regular basis to ensure you have sight of all relevant information.

For technical assistance on use of the e-Sourcing Suite please contact Crown Commercial Service Helpdesk : Telephone: 0345 010 3503 Training documents to support Bidders utilise Emptoris CCS eSourcing are available in the Contracts Finder Tender documents section.