Provision of services relating to the development of child abuse questionnaire and safeguarding procedure market engagement.

The ONS is assessing the feasibility of a survey measuring the current prevalence of child abuse in the UK. We published an article (link below) in January 2021 outlining our proposals for what a survey should look like, such as the survey coverage and methodology.

Following conducting a large public consultation (link below) and further qualitative research, we concluded (link below) that there was no fundamental reason not to conduct a pilot.

The next stage of this work requires the development of an appropriate safeguarding procedure and questionnaire. The main aims of this research are to:

*develop two questionnaires to capture the current prevalence of child abuse, which will be asked of two different participant groups; children aged 11 to 17 years and adults aged 18 to 25 years (with the survey for children aged 11-15 taking place in schools)

*design a safeguarding procedure, which will assess the current level of risk to the participant and apply the appropriate level of safeguarding

Links to documents embedded in text:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/exploringthefeasibilityofasurveymeasuringchildabuseintheuk/january2021 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/exploringthefeasibilityofasurveymeasuringchildabuseintheuk/april2022 https://consultations.ons.gov.uk/external-affairs/child-abuse-survey-consultation/

At this time ONS are looking to engage with prospective suppliers to gauge the level of expertise/previous experience in questionnaire development in this sensitive area. This engagement will be used to help ONS build and structure the statement of requirements to be used for the procurement.

Please register on ONS's e-tendering portal - https://in-tendhost.co.uk/ons/aspx/Home.

You will need to 'express an interest' in this project (search for the appropriate tender - Development of a child abuse questionnaire and safeguarding procedure under 'Current Tenders').

When you have expressed an interest, please send correspondence indicating if you can meet the essential criteria outlined below, to allow ONS to have an understanding of what your company can offer. We will then schedule follow-up one-to-one sessions where we can discuss further.

Essential criteria

*Expertise/previous experience in this sensitive topic area or connections with those that do

*Expertise/previous experience in survey and questionnaire development and testing

Please provide a brief overview of how you can meet the essential criteria via correspondence by the 28th July 2022.

Additional information: Is a Recurrent Procurement Type? : No