CN250157 - Speech, Language and Communication Needs – Delivering Inclusion within the Curriculum for...

Speech, Language and Communication Needs – Delivering Inclusion within the Curriculum for Education (DICE) Service

Kent County Council is seeking to commission a Speech, Language and Communication Needs – Delivering Inclusion within the Curriculum for Education (DICE) Service, that supports children and young people in mainstream schools and across community settings, such as Family Hubs, during both term time and school holiday periods. The service will hold a key role in supporting those children and young people who are either in mainstream schools and those who for various reasons are not attending school regularly (e.g. such as those home educated, non/low-school attendance, living in Refuges, etc) and have Speech and Language needs. This will be referred to as place-based settings. This service will initially sit alongside the wider Community Services provided by the NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB) with an ambition for the services to be seamless provision to those accessing the Services.

The Balanced System® Framework is a framework for commissioning Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN) for children and young people. The aim is to use the framework to understand, plan and evaluate services to support children and young people with SLCN within place-based settings across Kent. The Framework has been developed in line with both national policy and legislation, as well as professional guidance for Speech and Language Therapists, to deliver integrated services for children and young people.

Subject to acquiring approval, it is Kent County Council’s intention to commission a Speech, Language and Communication Needs – Delivering Inclusion within the Curriculum for Education (DICE) Service, commencing 1 September 2025. The Council therefore wants to conduct market engagement to determine the most appropriate service model for this provision across Kent. Service delivery will be in partnership and working with the wider stakeholders, including, but not limited to NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB), 12 District and Borough Councils, Medway Council.
As part of Kent County Council’s commitment to fairness, openness and transparency the Prior Information Notice (PIN) is issued solely for the purpose of conducting pre-procurement market testing with the following aims:

• To develop a suitable delivery model.
• To understand the market and readiness to deliver the DICE provision across Kent.
• To explore the most viable commissioning approach to deliver the provision.
• To explore whether recruitment and retention to the model is achievable.

As part of this pre-tender process a short questionnaire is available to interested providers to complete. To register an interest in this opportunity providers must submit an ‘Expression of Interest’ (EOI) through the Kent Business Portal and complete the associated ‘SLCN Survey Questionnaire' and return to us before Monday 17th February 2025

Questions are as follows: -

1. Please give your reasons why you would be interested in bidding for this opportunity. If there are any barriers to bidding, please also specify

2. Options under consideration include deciding the duration of the contract, procuring a longer-term contract (minimum 5-year initial term) with optional extensions up to 24 months is being considered. Is this an option that you would welcome and why.

3. Options being proposed include delivery of these services within the Balanced System ® would this present any challenges to your organisation and why?

Please note that feedback from questionnaires and the workshops will be shared with every provider who has expressed an interest once this pre-tender Market Engagement has concluded.

Please be aware that this EOI will close at 2 pm on 24th February 2025 and all responses will need to be submitted via the Kent Business Portal by this time.