ASC0322 - Participation Service

**THIS IS NOT A CALL FOR COMPETITION**

Leicester City Council (the Authority) is re-commissioning its Participation Service which will facilitate the participation and involvement of people with lived experience in adult social care decision making, policy making and involvement in the co production of local adult social care services.

The service will work alongside the Making it Real group, which is made up of people who are experts by experience of drawing on social care or caring for someone who is, as well as people who work in social care, working together as equals. Further information about this group can be found at Making it Real (leicester.gov.uk).

Additional information in relation to the proposed service model and key requirements can be located within the attached Soft Market Testing Questionnaire.

It is anticipated, dependent upon an engagement exercise, that tenders for this service would be sought in May 2025, to enable a new contract to begin by early September 2025 or as soon as practicable. Please note, however, that the exact date of when tenders would be sought is subject to change. The Authority is undertaking this preliminary market engagement as part of the commissioning process through conducting a soft market testing (SMT) exercise. This gives potential providers and other stakeholders the opportunity to express their interests and feed in their views. The Commissioners will use the information to appraise options and develop the Service model.

To participate in this Soft Market Testing, for organisations that may be interested, either individually or as part of a consortium, please complete the Soft Market Testing questionnaire. The SMT Questionnaire must be completed and submitted by no later than 14:00hrs on Tuesday 6th May 2025.

This advert is regarding undertaking a Soft Market Test and therefore is not a call for competition. This process does not constitute a formal Tender or other competitive bidding process and will not result in the letting of a Contract. The Commissioners are using this process solely to test the market to gather information. There are therefore no formal criteria which Commissioners will use to judge your responses, and it is not our intention to provide any feedback.

Please be aware that we are subject to the disclosure requirements of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and that potentially any information we hold is liable to disclosure under that Act. For this reason, we would strongly advise that any information you consider to be confidential is labelled as such. The Authority may also decide to include certain information in the publication scheme which the Authority maintains under the Act. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 ("FOIA"), members of the public or any interested party may make a request for information to the Authority. The Authority will consider the disclosure of any information, contained in the SMT questionnaire, subject to the exemptions under the FOIA.