Soft Market Testing: Learning Disability Speak Up Service

The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (The Council) is undertaking a commissioning exercise to determine the future delivery options for the Learning Disability Parliament and Quality Check services (Learning Disability Speaking Up).



These services support into the Council’s strategic priorities of ensuring that:
1. the voices of service users, carers and the wider population are central to the development and delivery of both their own health and care and the health and care services provided in Kingston and
2. people who are disadvantaged or socially excluded to have similar opportunities for good health and wellbeing as the wider population in Kingston.
These priorities shall be met through the provision of the Speaking Up service.



The purpose of the Speaking Up service is to ensure there is a robust process for hearing and responding to the views of people with learning disabilities in the development and quality monitoring of services for adults with a learning disability in Kingston.

In order to inform the future commissioning activity, soft market testing is required with potential suppliers and organisations with relevant experience in delivering similar services, in order to gain a robust understanding of how the Council’s requirements can best be met.


This document provides background and information regarding the in-scope services and the Council’s soft market testing process and timeframes. It accompanies a questionnaire which interested parties are kindly asked to complete via the London Tenders portal no later than 15:00 on 22nd July 2016.


This soft market testing activity does not constitute a call for competition to procure any services, supplies or works for the Council and the Council is not bound to accept any proposals offered. The Council is not liable for any costs, fees or expenses incurred by any party participating in the soft market testing exercise. Any procurement of any services, supplies or works by the Council in due course will be carried out strictly in accordance with the provisions in the UK and EU Procurement Regulations.