Delivery of the Looked-After-Children & Independent School Demonstrator Hubs

The purpose of this procurement is to appoint a delivery partner to A. set up and run between 6 and 10 demonstrator hubs in England which promote partnerships between independent schools and looked-after children (LAC) and; B. a national placement brokerage service for the placement of LAC in independent schools.

2.2 The Department is looking to fund a service from October 2019 to provide targeted advice and bespoke, specialist support to Local Authorities (LAs) & Schools to place in children in the Independent Schools' Sector. This will help them to build their capacity and capability to continue placing children once this contract has come to an end.

2.3 Where placements are not the most appropriate for children, the department still wants to enable those children to experience the high quality offer of provisions, clubs and targeted support from indepependent schools in the locality. This is why alongside the placement service we would expect the delivery partner to setup and run between 6-10 regional demonstrator hubs to allow the widest range of LAC to benefit.

2.4 This new programme (both hubs and placements service) will need to support and complement - not duplicate - other resources available to LAs & schools.

2.5 The hubs will deliver support to local authorities looking to find ways to address some of the achievement and attainment gaps that exist within LAC cohorts to better support their progression in school and beyond by making the best use of good or outstanding independent schools.

2.6 Facilitating the spread of good practice nationally by harnessing the best of the demonstrator hubs so that it can inform a national rollout after the contract comes to an end.

2.7 The imperative is to fill gaps in the knowledge that children's services professionals have, disseminate good practice and ensure that local hubs have access to bespoke, specialist support to help them respond to the needs of children in care. For example where there is a need for LAC to receive targeted support with university applications, the hubs would work with LAs to broker a partnership of independent schools which can provide targeted UCAS interventions. This may be through afters chool clubs, masterclasses or Saturday schools to name a few.

2.8 We are making available up to a maximum of £562,500 for 27 months (October 2019 - December 2021) to help deliver this new national palcements service and the local demonstrator hubs.