Con_16490 Step Up to Social Work Administration Solution (Cohort 8)

This contract is for delivery of a fully managed service that performs administration of the assessment and recruitment support services to enable the national recruitment of candidates onto the Step-Up to Social Work programme. Notably, the service involves both IT systems and in person support at assessment centres.

The Step Up to Social Work training programme ("Step-Up") as delivered by Local Authorities ("LAs") in partnership with local Higher Education Institutions ("HEIs") was designed to deliver a consistent supply of high-quality social workers into the sector from wide ranging backgrounds. The rationale for Step-Up was, and continues to be, to expand the recruitment pool for social work while addressing deficiency in workforce quality and sufficiency. The Step-Up programme requires a fully managed service to be provided by the supplier to LAs within their Regional Partnerships. A summary of the required services is set out below:

- Design, supply and hosting of an IT-based application data capture system to coordinate the assessment process and assessment centres across England;

- Administrative support to Regional Partnerships, to assess application pool of c.8,000 - 10,000 applicants;

- Staffing function at Regional Partnership assessment centres to recruit 700 trainees for the eighth cohort;

- Quality assurance function on applications at all stages of the process;

- Targeted Recruitment advice and support to minimise and remove any inequitable barriers candidates may face.

The Department for Education (DfE) elected to procure the full Administration Solution service by carrying out a further competition under an existing Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation (YPO) Framework specifically for managing temporary and permanent recruitment (Framework 942, Lot 11 'recruitment process outsourcing 'RPO').

This Contract shall expire on 31st December 2024 unless the Contracting Authority elects to extend the Contract for a further cohort of the Step Up to Social Work Programme, in which case the Expiry Date for this Contract shall be 31st December 2025, and activity associated with the delivery of the service for cohort 9 will commence in October 2024. The contract includes an extension provision for 1 further cohort subject to satisfactory performance and a demonstration of future efficiencies.

The total Contract Price for the Initial Contract Period is £512,524.99 (excluding VAT). The total value set out in this notice includes the maximum value of the contract over 2 cohorts in the event that the contract extension is enacted, excluding the cost of administrators for assessment centres.