The Teaching Line and associated services

The National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL), an executive agency of the Department for Education, anticipates that, in early 2016, it will look to commence a procurement exercise for delivery of an advisory service currently called the Get into Teaching Line to support the delivery of the annual national teacher recruitment targets. The main purpose of the service is convert candidates’ interest in teaching to a successful application to Initial Teacher Training. It also supports those that are already qualified but not currently teaching into teaching posts. The service is expected to include: • a contact centre that manages inbound, outbound, webchat and social media enquiries; • a data collection and reporting facility that enables NCTL to record and track progress of individuals expressing an interest in a teaching career or returning to the profession; • a dedicated one to one advisory service to provide additional support for candidates in priority subjects; • support to enable candidates to gain school experience to support their application in priority subjects; • a tailored CRM programme of candidate support emails. There may also be additional requirements such as providing guidance on procedures for schools who are looking to apply for Teaching School status and teachers who are looking to apply for System Leader designations. The contract will be required to be flexible in order to meet the changing requirements and priorities of government over the contract term. It is anticipated that a new contract will be awarded in June 2016. The provider will be expected to start full service delivery from September 2016. Please note that NCTL has an existing contract in place to manage the delivery of this service up to the end of August 2016 and therefore service delivery prior to this date will not be part of the requirement. The expected annual value of the contract is between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 per annum excluding VAT. The term of the contract is expected to be 3 years with options to extend. This PIN is to instigate an Early Market Engagement exercise to help NCTL: o Assess capability of the market to deliver the requirements. o Assess the capacity of the market to deliver the requirements. o Explore new ways to deliver that offer best value for money. o Explore opportunities for SMEs to be involved in delivery of this work.

Additional information: NCTL is planning to host two market engagement events on 17 November (London), and 19 November (Manchester).

The market engagement events will provide an opportunity to discuss the business requirement, the minimum intended outcomes and the procurement strategy. We welcome engaging with a wide range of organisations to explore innovative ways of delivering our objectives. This could improve our thinking for the planned tender opportunity.

If you would like to attend the market engagement events, email the address below including the subject line: ‘MARKET ENAGAGEMENT EVENT’ with your contact details and preferred location:

[email protected]

The deadline for registering is 12:00pm Friday 13 November.

A further online market engagement event will be held on Monday 23 November 2015, from 9.30am, and will contain exactly the same information as the Manchester-based event. If you would like to participate in this online seminar, please email the address below with the subject line ‘MARKET ENAGAGEMENT EVENT’, and provide your contact details. Further details will then be provided.

[email protected].

The deadline for registering is 12:00pm Friday 20 November 2015.

If you are unable to attend an event, or are interested in engaging with us on a one-to-one basis outside of this forum, please contact us using the above email address.

Please note this does not equate to a formal expression of interest in any future procurement activity.

The Early Market Engagement exercise is expected to end with the anticipated release of an Invitation to Tender in early 2016. This may be subject to change as a result of Early Market Engagement, funding opportunities and changes in governmental priorities. NCTL will, in due course, consider inviting Bidders to express interest via an Open Procedure within the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). The Invitation to Tender would be launched and managed through the NCTL e-procurement system, REDIMO. Bidders would need to be registered on REDIMO to be able to participate in the procurement. If you are interested in this PIN (and are not already registered on REDIMO) please register your company details on the NCTL e-procurement portal. Information about how to register is published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/national-college-for-teaching-and-leadership/about/procurement Please email [email protected] if you want to find out more about the NCTL Market Engagement exercise. Please note that this does not equate to a formal expression of interest in any future procurement activity.

Expected contract start date 06/06/2016 to include set up period, with delivery to commence from 01/09/2016 to 31/08/2019, with the option to extend for 1 plus 1 year.

(We would like to note that there may be some pre-delivery time allowed from 06/06/16, whilst the delivery runs from 01/09/16 and 31/08/19)