Apprenticeship Levy - Multi Provider Flexible Procurement Agreement for the Provision of Apprentices...

The Council wishes to enter into a flexible procurement agreement with multiple training providers to deliver on a call-off basis (as required by the Council during the agreement term) high quality apprenticeship training from intermediate level to degree level across a variety of areas of study throughout the Council.
For this agreement there will be 4 Lots as set out below based on the core Council service areas and each Lot will then contain a number of specific areas of specialist study within that Lot. Providers are able to bid for one, some or all Lots and for one, some or all areas of specialist study under the relevant Lot(s).
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Lot 1 – Care and Support
Lot 2 – Economy Place Based Services
Lot 3 – Corporate Services
Lot 4 – People Services

The areas of specialist study within each Lot are set out in the ITT Schedule 1 Specification under the section Service Requirements. These individual study areas reflect the current anticipated areas of apprenticeship training for each core Council service area.

All bidders for each Lot who pass the compliance checks and selection questionnaire will proceed to the quality method statement evaluation and those providers who meet a quality threshold of a minimum of 65% will be included on the final agreement for that Lot. The bidders will then be ranked (highest to lowest) per specialist study area within the relevant Lot according to their score within the above evaluation process.

When a subsequent call-off training requirement arises under a Lot, the provider ranked first for that relevant study area within the Lot will be invited to accept the individual call-off requirements and if so, a call-off contract for the relevant training provision will be awarded on a direct basis and in accordance with the terms of the Flexible Procurement Agreement.

If the first ranked provider is unable to meet the individual call-off requirements, then the second ranked provider for that study area will then be invited to accept to the individual call-off requirements on a direct basis. If required, this process will then be repeated by applying the ranking for the relevant study area until the call-off contract is awarded.

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The Council reserves the right at its discretion through the term of the Agreement to advertise opportunities for additional providers to participate in this proposed Flexible Procurement Agreement in the following circumstances:

(i) There are no existing ranked providers for a specialist study area within a Lot; or
(ii) None of the ranked providers for a specialist study area have the capacity to perform an individual call-off requirement or they reject the call-off requirement.
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In these circumstances, the Council will advertise the opportunity for additional provider(s) to join the relevant Lot(s) on the same terms and conditions as set out in this ITT (provided they meet the minimum award criteria for that Lot as set out in the ITT) and who have the ability to provide the specialist training requirement. Any successful new entrant(s) will then be added to the existing Lot. In addition, where there is an immediate call-off requirement for a study area which cannot be met through the existing ranking for that study area under the Agreement, the new entrant that is ranked first for the relevant study area through the above process will also be invited to accept the relevant call-off requirement.

For the avoidance of doubt, existing providers’ ranking will not be affected by the above process. In the case of those specific study areas that are already subject to an existing ranked list, then (subject to the award of any immediate call-off requirements) any new entrant(s) for that study area will be added to the existing ranked list after the current lowest ranked provider for that study area. The new entrant(s) will then be ranked according to the scores they achieved for the relevant study area through the new process.