Adoption Support Services Contract

Essex County Council is inviting tenders to deliver high quality services across Essex to meet its diverse needs and improve stability & support for the following:

1 - Peer Support for adoptive Families - Start 07/07/2016 2 - Counselling, Advice and Information Service for birth families and those affected by adoption and Special Guardianship Orders - Start 01/09/2016

The tender documentation shall be available on 18th February 2016 or shortly after.

To register your interest in the event, request more details and access to the tender documentation please email: [email protected]

Additional information: The supplier portal will be used throughout the procurement process, and all communications with Essex County Council relating to this procurement exercise must be via the supplier portal. The supplier portal has instructions on how to use the system and access the information as well as a helpdesk to assist Bidders. Essex County Council reserves the right to amend timescales and change the evaluation criteria if there are genuine omissions or mistakes. We also reserve the right to cancel the procurement exercise and/or not to award all or part of a contract. Essex County Council will not be responsible for any costs incurred by suppliers in relation to this procurement exercise.

Suppliers are advised that Essex County Council is subject to the Freedom of Information act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). If a supplier considers that any of the information supplied as part of this procurement exercise should not be disclosed because of its commercial sensitivity, confidentiality or otherwise, it must, when providing this information, clearly identify the specific information it does not wish to be disclosed and clearly specify the reasons for its sensitivity. Essex County Council shall take such statements into consideration in the event that it receives a request pursuant to FOIA or EIR which relates to the information provided by a Supplier. However, if the information is requested Essex County Council may be obliged to under FOIA and/or EIR to disclose such information, irrespective of the supplier's wishes. Please note that it is not sufficient to include a statement of confidentiality encompassing all the information provided in the response. Suppliers Instructions: How to Express Interest in this Tender 1. Send an email with your organisation name in the subject title field to mail to: [email protected] asking to be invited to this event and providing your contact name and Supplier ID/User ANID from your Ariba registration details.

2. If you have more than one registered user who you want invited to the event, provide the name(s) of each registered user in your request as it may not be possible to include additional users at a later stage.

If you are not registered in Ariba at all, go to http://ecc.supplier.ariba.com/ad/register/SSOActions?type=full and follow the instructions to register then follow steps 1 and 2 above. (PLEASE NOTE:35% completion (i.e. mandatory fields only: organisation/user details, commodity, sales territory) is the minimum required for your Ariba cloud registration, you do not need to reach 100% completion.) Once you have been invited to the project all communication will need to be via the project message board.

Closing date for this tender is 10am, 4 April 2016.