Lewisham Sexuality and Gender Wellbeing Service - SEL CCG

NHS South East London CCG (Lewisham borough) is seeking to commission an outstanding voluntary sector provider, with extensive experience supporting the LGBTQ+ community to provide a Gender and Sexuality Emotional Support Service.

The primary objective of the service is to offer a range of psychosocial support and counselling opportunities to LGBTQ+ residents in Lewisham, whilst providing volunteering opportunities to local residents. The service will offer an early and accessible route into a range of low level therapeutic interventions. The aim of the service is to strengthen our community-based prevention and early intervention offer, by providing specialist emotional wellbeing and mental health support to the LGBTQ+ community in Lewisham. The service is made of two key elements: Community Wellbeing Workshops and Personal Wellbeing Workshops.

The chosen provider must ensure effective relationships and liaison arrangements between the service and other partner agencies across the voluntary and statutory sector. These stakeholder relationships are essential to ensure advocacy services are able to adapt to changes within local structures for provision and national guidelines.

This is a reserved contract opportunity and is open only to organisations who meet both of the following criteria:

• organisations who are designated as a Small and Medium sized Enterprise (SME) or Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) (see definitions below); and
• organisations located in South East London (London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Bexley, Greenwich or Bromley)

Please see below for further information on definitions.

This decision to reserve this contract opportunity is in line with PPN 11/20 "Reserving Below Threshold Contracts".

It is expected that the contract will start on 1st April 2022 and run for a period of 36 months until 31 March 2025 with an annual value of £35,000 (including irrecoverable VAT). The contract may be extended for a further period of up to 24 months at the CCG's discretion. Therefore, if extended, the contract will have a total duration of 60 months and a total value of £175,000 (including irrecoverable VAT).

The Procurement process will be facilitated entirely online via ProContract portal. Interested applicants wishing to participate in the procurement must register, express an interest and complete the online questionnaires hosted on the portal prior to the deadline for submission. All clarification requests and correspondence pertaining to this opportunity must be directed through the portal. A timetable for the procurement, guidance re: process, and supplementary information relating to the contract opportunity is also available from the portal.

https://procontract.due-north.com/Advert?advertId=9ab789cc-b55d-ec11-8110-005056b64545

Additional information: The following definitions will apply to the reservation of the opportunity:

• Small and Medium sized Enterprise (SME): Any business with fewer than 250 employees and either an annual turnover below £45m or a total balance sheet less than £40m.
• Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises (VCSEs): Any organisation (incorporated or not) working with a social purpose. This ranges from small community based groups / schemes, through to larger registered charities and social enterprises, public service mutuals and cooperatives that operate locally, regionally and nationally.
• Supplier Location: Where the supplier is based or established in South East London (London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Bexley, Greenwich or Bromley) and has substantive business operations in one of more of these boroughs. In this context, this means having a registered office or other permanent base in the borough from which meaningful business operations have been conducted for at least 12 months.

London Shared Services (previously NELCSU) is managing this process on behalf of NHS South East London CCG (The Authority). The services to which this advert relates fall within Schedule 3 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (the Regulations) and the "Light Touch Regime" (LTR) governing the procurement of Health, Social, Education and Other service contracts. This contract is below the LTR thresholds. Neither the reference to the "Open Procedure" or the use of the term "Tender process", nor any other indication shall be taken to mean that The Authority intends to hold itself bound to any of the Regulations, save those applicable to below-threshold contracts for Schedule 3 services.