Specialist Education Framework Phase 1 – Independent Non-Maintained Special Schools Lots 1 and 2

Nottinghamshire County Council (‘the Council’) are running an open tender process to establish a new framework under which the Council are looking to commission Independent non-maintained special schools (INMSS) and Post-16 (where the provision is delivered in house by the school) for the provision of specialist school placements for pupils who are not attending mainstream or maintained schools and who have an Education Health Care (EHC) Plan.

The establishment of a framework agreement for INMSS is the first phase of the recommissioning of the Specialist Education provision for the Council as set out in the Vision document. Ultimately the framework will be extended to include Alternative Education Provision and Post-16 institutions (e.g., further education colleges that are not part of the INMSS), that will be the second/third phases of the recommissioning project and new procurement processes will be run at later dates which are yet to be decided.

A Framework Agreement is an agreement between the contracting authority and one or more Service Providers, the purpose of which is to establish the terms governing contracts to be awarded during a given period.

This initial phase of the framework will have two lots under which the Council can make specialist school placements. In Lot 1 commissioners will put in place block contracts with providers and Lot 2 will see the establishment of an approved provider list.

The contract will commence from 01 April 2024 for a period of 5 years to 31 March 2029.

The Framework Agreement will commence from the 1st of April 2024, “call-off” contracts under Lot 2 may commence from the 1st of April 2024, however the earliest date “call-off” contracts can commence under Lot 1 is the 1st of September 2024.

There is potential to extend this Framework Agreement for up to a further 6 years in increments of 24 months.

Please read all the tender documents. If you have any questions, please submit them through
the procurement portal using the messaging facility.

To register your interest in this tender and to view the tender documents, the tender is
published on https://www.eastmidstenders.org/

Reference DN694393

The closing date for all tenders is the 22nd of December 2023
Please note that a standstill period of 10 days will commence from the notification of the
contract award.