Evaluation Coordinator for the Children's Social Care Innovation Programme / Partners in Practice

The Department for Education (DfE) proposes to tender for an evaluation coordinator for the Children's Social Care Innovation Programme (IP). The evaluation coordinator will oversee programme wide evaluation including: coordination and management of the individual evaluation teams (a separate PIN will be published for this work), and bringing together data from themes and projects to provide an overall assessment across the whole programme.

This work will also include oversight of evaluation related to the Partners in Practice (PiP) programme.

We intend to publish this opportunity through the Education & Children's Social Care Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) via the Redimo 2 e-procurement system on Monday 5 December 2016. See below for more information regarding the e-procurement system.

Background The Innovation Programme was launched in October 2013 to act as a catalyst for developing more effective ways of supporting vulnerable children. In its first two years the IP has supported 53 projects with £110m, operating across 59% of all top tier local authorities and involving over 120 public, private and voluntary sector organisations.

Partners in Practice initiative, initially agreed by the child protection taskforce, and announced by the Prime Minister in December 2015 will model excellence and innovation in the delivery of children's social care services.

Evaluation Evaluation is a core component of the IP. We need to undertake high quality evaluations and produce compelling and accessible outputs for practitioners.

The evaluation strategy consists of:

- individual evaluation organisations allocated to themes and ready to work with funded LAs and organisations to evaluate what works, why, and in what circumstances.

- an evaluation coordinator responsible for setting and assuring high evaluation standards, overseeing evaluations, and bringing together data across themes to demonstrate progress towards the Innovation Programme objectives.

We expect to appoint the evaluation coordinator on a two-year contract, to run from January 2017 to January 2019 with flexibility to extend for a further two years, both with yearly break clauses.

Estimated Total Value (exl VAT) Up to £0.5m over 2 years with the possibility to extend to £1m over 4 years.

Additional information: The evaluation coordinator will play a crucial role in the programme with responsibility for: • setting strategic direction and high standards for evaluation, minimising burdens, • quality-assuring, advising, overseeing and developing the individual project evaluation plans, • analysing how projects are making use of existing data, • bringing together data from across the projects to assess progress against each theme (including Partners in Practice) and across the programme as a whole and provide an overall assessment of the evidence of systemic change.

This list is not conclusive and further detail will be provided when this work is advertised.

Additional Information Suppliers interested in bidding for this work will need to register on Redimo 2. Redimo 2 is used for contracting for most works, goods and services that are awarded following an electronic competitive tendering process. Registration allows organisations both to gain membership to the Education & Children's Social Care Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) and e-tender for other opportunities published by the DfE and its executive agencies.

Guidance on how to register and information regarding the ECSC DPS is available on the .gov website at www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/about/procurement.

This opportunity will be tendered through the DPS via the category 'ECSC05: Evaluator'. Please ensure you have successfully gained DPS membership and selected this category by COP on Friday 25 November 2016 to prevent missing out on this opportunity.

We intend to hold a supplier day in December and further information will be provided in due course.

Other information Please see the Department's Delivery partner's website for more information on the Innovation Programme www.springconsortium.com

Email: [email protected] for queries on the Innovation Programme /Partners in Practice and Evaluation.

Email: [email protected] for Redimo / DPS queries.