Invitation to Tender for the Delivery of Area Based National Careers Service in Greater Manchester (January 2018 - September 2018)

The National Careers Service is a free and impartial service, contracted by ESFA within the Department for Education, with the purpose of helping people improve their job prospects ensuring that there is an efficient labour market which drives growth. The service offer is available to all adults and young people living or working in England. The offer includes information and advice about learning and career management including apprenticeships and traineeships. Customers can access the service through a multi-channel offer which includes an area based service, a national contact centre and a national website. The area based service focused on adults 19+ is delivered through a multi-channel approach (face to face, telephone, digital) interacting closely with both the national contact centre and website.

The Growth Company (GC) is a Matrix accredited, Ofsted Grade 2 prime contractor of current area-based National Careers Service contracts for Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Staffordshire and Liverpool City Region, Cumbria and Lancashire - i.e. the whole of the North West region plus Staffordshire. GC is a highly experienced provider of National Careers Service, having delivered the service and its predecessor, Next Step, since 1997. GC is an experienced prime contractor and holds Merlin Standard accreditation for supply chain excellence.

GC is inviting suppliers to tender to expand the network of providers in Greater Manchester to deliver the current multi-channel area based National Careers Service contract launched in October 2014.

GC invites bidders to enter into a single stage tender process to fulfil this contract opportunity to deliver careers guidance to adult customers across Greater Manchester.

This contract is for delivery from January 2018 to September 2018 in Greater Manchester. For the purposes of this contract, Greater Manchester is part of the Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Warrington and Staffordshire Area Based Contract.

We are seeking organisations that are innovative in their service delivery proposals, have experience of payment by results type contracting, have capacity and experience and can maximise IT and social media effectively in delivery and customer engagement.

You are required to make your submission via the GC In-tend e-tendering platform.

Please note that bidders may also wish to consider Expressing their Interest in a further opportunity for National Careers Service for the period October 2018 to September 2021. Details are on a separate notice on Contracts Finder.

Additional information: If you wish to apply to this opportunity, and you are not already registered on our In-tend Supplier platform you are required to complete a basic registration as a supplier at the following web address: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/manchestergrowthcompany/aspx/Home

Please note that all mandatory fields (highlighted in yellow on the In-Tend Portal) must be completed in order to register your organisation.

Once registered, you will be able to log into the system, express your interest and automatically download the documentation.