Provision of HMPPS Prisoner, Family and Significant Other Services

This PIN is being issued for initial Stage 1 market engagement purposes only. Stage 2 of the market engagement will be an event held in Autumn.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is retendering the provision of HMPPS Prisoner Family and Significant Other Services in England and Wales public prison estate It is recognised that supporting and maintaining links between offenders and their families can help reduce re-offending. Doing so can contribute to tackling intergenerational offending by addressing the poor outcomes faced by children of offenders. Visitor centres offer support to Families and Significant Others. They offer signposting to a range of support services, decrease the stress associated with visiting a prison establishment and facilitate inter agency working. The visitor centre services are delivered throughout most of the estate, the level of service and size of resourcing is largely dependent on local need.

The MoJ is keen to explore different specification components to ensure family services provisions address the recommendations from Lord Farmer's 2017 and 2019 reviews (links below), as well as exploring greater integration with probation reforms, explained in detail here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/strengthening-probation-building-confidence

Lord Farmer Review (2017) - The Importance of Strengthening Prisoners' Family Ties to Prevent Reoffending and Reduce Intergenerational Crime. Link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/642244/farmer-review-report.pdf

Lord Farmer Review (2019) - The Importance of Strengthening Female Offenders' Family and Other Relationships to Prevent Reoffending and Reduce Intergenerational Crime. Link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/farmer-review-for-women

As part of an options analysis, MoJ is inviting potential providers to participate in a market questionnaire in support of developing the specification and procurement approach, as far as permitted by the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.

MoJ is seeking information for the following reasons: 1. To better understand the current market capability and capacity 2. To better understand costings for the different types of services 3. To inform the specification development and options 4. To identify any market concerns and potential barriers to entry 5. Opportunities for social value

For providers that are interested and wish to complete the questionnaire the link is below: https://forms.office.com/r/BeZ2K68mmc

The purpose of this PIN is to alert the market to pre-engagement activity only and does not commit the Authority to launch any formal procurement procedure.

The deadline for questionnaire responses will be 17:00 on 6th July 2021. Once responses have been considered internally, Stage 2 of the market engagement, an event, will be held in Autumn 2021. To register your interest for the market engagement event please email [email protected]

Additional information: MoJ reserves the right to supplement and vary the conduct of the prior engagement process. Where MoJ varies the process, it will act transparently and treat all suppliers who have expressed an interest equally.

This will be a non-competitive, information gathering exercise, where interested providers are invited to respond. The services within scope of the Authority's anticipated requirements are listed within Schedule 3 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR) and so pursuant to Regulation 74 of the PCR will be subject to the Light Touch Regime under which the Authority is not obliged to comply with the full requirements of the PCR. The Authority will comply with its obligations of equal treatment, transparency, non-discrimination and proportionality during the procurement.