CP1311-16 Provision of Youth Service in Devon

Devon County Council is seeking bids from suitably experienced, qualified and skilled organisations to provide a Youth Service for Devon.

Devon County Council's (DCC) existing in-house Devon Youth Service (DYS) is part of a broad range of early help and support services for children & young people and their families. The DYS was revised and remodelled by DCC in 2014 when:
• The number of youth and community centres run by the DYS reduced from 32 to 8.
• The DYS budget was reduced from £3.0million for 2014/15 to £1.65million in 2015/16.
• The DYS staff resource was reduced from 114FTE to about 50FTE employees.

An assessment of the impact of those changes was made following a wide ranging engagement and consultation process with staff, young people and communities. The May 2014 impact assessment of those changes is available here. https://new.devon.gov.uk/youthreview/files/2014/01/Youth-Offer-Impact-Assessment.pdf
1.2 Reason for change

In June 2014, the Council's Cabinet agreed that a review be undertaken to explore alternative models for how the DYS is provided. The Cabinet requested that an options appraisal be undertaken to look at alternative ways of providing the service in the future.

On 8 April 2105, the Council's Cabinet decided to conduct a procurement exercise to divest the Devon Youth Service (DYS) to an employee-led public service mutual or other social enterprise.

On 14 October 2015, the Cabinet re-affirmed its decision that the youth service be divested to an independent entity (report SC/15/7 and minute 324(b)(i) refer).

The ITT, Specification, Appendices and Schedules associated to this procurement explain Devon County Council's requirements for a divested service.

The scope of the divested Youth Service for Devon is the provision of:
1. An open access youth service for Young People.
2. Targeted youth work for Young People and targeted group work with Young People with multiple needs as part of an integrated offer to vulnerable Young People.
3. Advice, guidance and support to voluntary and community groups.
4. Alternative Provision to mainstream education which will be commissioned and funded by DCC, schools and other education providers.
5. Providing the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme.

The six outcomes which the divested Youth Service for Devon will achieve for Young People accessing the service are:

Outcome 1: Young people are safe from harm, neglect and exploitation.
Outcome 2: Vulnerable Young People have good life chances.
Outcome 3: Disadvantaged Young People have more opportunities and better outcomes.
Outcome 4: Young people are able to establish good relationships and connections.
Outcome 5: Young people influence the decisions that affect them.
Outcome 6: Young people have good opportunities to participate in their community.

This is being procured under the Light Touch Regime in accordance with Chapter 3, Section 7 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. This will be a one stage procurement process and participation is reserved to qualifying organisations pursuing a public service mission and fulfilling the conditions set out under Regulation 77 (Reserved contracts for certain services) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.

Please refer to Regulation 77, in full below, which details the conditions that organisations must fulfil in order to qualify:

Reserved contracts for certain services
77.—(1) Contracting authorities may reserve to qualifying organisations the right to participate in procedures for the award of reservable public contracts.
(2) For that purpose, a contract is a reservable public contract only if it is exclusively for one or more of the services which are covered by CPV codes 75121000-0, 75122000-7, 75123000-4, 79622000-0, 79624000-4, 79625000-1, 80110000-8, 80300000-7, 80420000-4, 80430000-7, 80511000-9, 80520000-5, 80590000-6, from 85000000-9 to 85323000-9, 92500000-6, 92600000-7, 98133000-4, and 98133110-8.
(3) In this regulation, “qualifying organisation” means an organisation which fulfils all of the following conditions:—
(a)its objective is the pursuit of a public service mission linked to the delivery of services referred to in paragraph (2);
(b)profits are reinvested with a view to achieving the organisation's objective, and any distribution of profits is based on participatory considerations;
(c)the structures of management or ownership of the organisation are (or will be, if and when it performs the contract) —
(i)based on employee ownership or participatory principles, or
(ii)require the active participation of employees, users or stakeholders; and
(d)the organisation has not been awarded, pursuant to this regulation, a contract for the services concerned by the contracting authority concerned within the past 3 years.
(4) The maximum duration of a contract awarded under this regulation shall not be longer than 3 years.
(5) Where a contracting authority exercises the power of reservation conferred by paragraph (1), the call for competition shall make reference to Article 77 of the Public Contracts Directive.
(6) This regulation does not apply in relation to the procurement of health care services for the purposes of the NHS within the meaning and scope of the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No. 2) Regulations 2013(1).

The subject matter of this procurement process relates to the delivery of services which are listed to in Schedule 3 to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. As such the full regime set out in the regulations will not apply to the award of services contracts. Consequently the procurement process adopted by the Authority has been developed in accordance with the fundamental public procurement principles of transparency and equal treatment. For the avoidance of doubt this means that the Authority has not adopted the open procedure (as such term is defined in the Regulations) for the undertaking of this procurement process. The fact that in the OJEU contract notice at section IV.1 the field/box relating to the type of procedure may default to the term ‘open’ does not mean that this procedure is being followed by the Authority. Please note that the Authority does not and shall not accept any suggestion from any potential bidder at the date of the notice or any time after such date that the open procedure has been adopted for the undertaking of this procurement process.

BIDDER EVENT

There will be a bidder event held in Exeter on 27th June 2016 in relation to this tender. The event will be an opportunity to have a brief overview of the service requirement from commissioners of the service, to have the procurement process explained, ITT document explained and there will be an opportunity to ask questions.

Whilst every endeavour will be made to answer questions at this event, it may be necessary to respond at a later date.

The presentations and questions and answers given will be made available via www.supplyingthesouthwest.org.uk.

Spaces for this event are limited and restricted to two persons per organisation. In order to ensure that this event is of the most benefit, bidding organisations are encouraged to ensure that persons attending are the most appropriate i.e. persons who will be constructing and making decisions about any bid submitted.

In order to book a place, please e-mail james.szalanskicoles@devon.gov.uk details of the time and venue will then be released.

Contract Duration = 3 years. From 01/02/2017 until 31/01/2020.

Contract Value = £5,245,500.00