Provision of Travel Services for Immigration Purposes

The Home Office is responsible, under the Immigration Act 1971 and the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, for detaining and/or enforcing the removal of certain persons (returnees) from the UK.

Returnees (and when required security escort staff) are transported either by scheduled flights with commercial carriers or via chartered aircraft.

The core objective of the Travel Service is to manage the transport arrangements for those individuals being removed from the UK. There may also be a requirement to manage travel arrangements for other immigration/government purposes as required by the Authority e.g. for Prisoner Transfers overseas.

The Home Office is seeking commercial partner(s) for the provision of a range of travel booking services. These services include (but are not limited to):

• Provision of a comprehensive travel service that complies with requirements and restrictions imposed in relation to the transportation of immigration passengers by carriers for scheduled flights; • Provision of tickets for Service Users, taking into account restrictions imposed by individual airlines; • Following detailed and specific individual airline procedures for obtaining refunds; • Managing relationships with the carriers to maximise cost-effective opportunities • Provision of a complete Charter service as necessary. • Providing hotel bookings as necessary.

Please note that the lowest and the highest values provided at Section 1 are the estimated total values for the contract periods of 5 and 7 years (5 years initial period and two years extension).

These estimated total values do not include pass through costs of approximately GBP 140 m (for 5 years duration) and 200 m (for 7 years duration) which are associated with purchase costs for Tickets, chartering aircraft(s) and hotel bookings.

Please note that the Contract start date of 13 July 2017 and Contract end date of 12 July 2022 (provided at Section 1) are estimated dates and as such are subject to change.

The Home Office uses an eSourcing toolkit to enable its sourcing activities to be conducted over the internet. In order to express an interest (and to gain access to the procurement documents) potential bidders are required to follow the steps set out in the attachment ‘How to express an interest’. This attachment is available at Section 5 of this notice.

Potential bidders are requested to read the OJEU (Contract Notice) linked at Section 5 of this notice.

Additional information: Potential Suppliers are requested to express interest by 12.4.2016; the process for expression of interest and requesting further information is set out below. For the avoidance of doubt, please note that potential suppliers are required to express an interest separately for this competition regardless of their involvement in the Market Engagement activities, any such involvement will not constitute an expression of interest for the competition advertised in this notice. The Home Office uses an eSourcing toolkit to enable its sourcing activities to be conducted over the internet. In order to express an interest and to gain access to the procurement documents potential bidders are required to follow the steps set out in the attachment ‘How to express an interest’.