WorldSkills UK Grant

The purpose of this Prior Information Notice (PIN) is to notify the market of a forthcoming application process aimed at awarding a grant to a Non-Government Organisation(NGO) to operate as WorldSkills UK from 2023.

The Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), grant fund an NGO to operate as WorldSkills UK (WSUK). This organisation is the Government's representative in WorldSkills International and WorldSkills Europe.

The ESFA want to use Team UK's entry into WorldSkills International and WorldSkills Europe competitions to support raising the national standards of technical and vocational provision.

International skills competitions occur every year with upcoming competitions scheduled in Shanghai 2022, St Petersburg 2023, Lyon 2024 and Herning 2025.

Team UK's performance in future international Skills competitions and individual colleges' and competitors' performances in the national skills competitions should act as a barometer for the progress being made in transforming our Further Education sector to a world class standard.

We require WSUK to use their access to international best practice and cutting-edge technical content and distribute it to businesses, employers, training providers and educational establishments. This is to support raising their standards and quality of technical and vocational provision.

The ESFA started managing the WorldSkills UK programme in 2018-19 and have been aligning the longstanding grant arrangement to the mandatory Government Functional Standard for Grants. In the next phase of alignment we are inviting organisations to take part in a programme of market engagement to test how the Minimum Grant Requirement Five: competition could be applied to this programme.

Our market engagement session will take place on Wednesday 1st December 2021 from 1pm until 3pm with follow up 1-2-1 sessions available during the days following that. This will be conducted via Microsoft Teams.

At the market engagement event we are looking to: a) Share the government's expectations of what is required from the programme from 2023. b) Seek innovative ideas, approaches and thoughts on the future delivery model. c) Understand the appetite from the market.

Suppliers wishing to attend an event must:

1) Register for a Jaggaer account (DfE's eTendering Portal) here https://education.app.jaggaer.com. 2) Go to the live opportunities and express interest in this opportunity. 3) Submit your attendee list. 4) Once received, the specific event timings and detailed joining instructions will be issued to you.

Following this market engagement, the intention is to then publish the grant application process for operating as WorldSkills UK beyond 2023 in early 2022.

Additional information: Please see attachment for full details of the notice.

All future information will be issued to potential providers via the DfE eTendering Portal URL: https://education.app.jaggaer.com. The grant competition will be run using this system and all bidding organisations must be registered and submit their applications through this portal.

If you have any questions or issues in accessing the system, please contact [email protected].

This notice is for information only and is not a call for competition at this stage. The Department reserves the right not to enter a formal competition process and not proceed with the grant award. Accordingly, the Department will not be liable for any bid cost, expenditure, work or effort incurred by any organisation in acting on the basis of this Prior Information Notice.

All information included in this notice is indicative and subject to change.