Provision of an Integrated Transport Service

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council (the Council) is seeking a lead provider to deliver and operate the whole of its passenger transport service (core services) as follows:

• (a)Home to School Transport for Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, (b) Transport for Supervised contact visits for families and Transport for Disabled Children Respite Care, (c) Adults with Learning Disabilities Transport and (d) Dial-a-ride Transport.

The core services maximum budget is £1.8m per annum to deliver the core services. Therefore any tenders that are in excess of £1.8m per annum will be disqualified. There may also be optional additional non-core services which the Council may add in its sole discretion (estimated to be an additional £980,000 per annum) as well as potential investment for any approved projects via the strategic partnering agreement (no specific value is earmarked at this time and any investment would be agreed over the life of the strategic partnering agreement).

Further details are set out in the Services Specification published with the tender documents.

The Council also wishes to also establish a partnership between the Council and the lead provider to deliver the partnership objectives as described in the Services Specification.