Expressions of Interest for Area Based National Careers Service Contract (October 2018 - September 2021 )

The National Careers Service is a free and impartial service, contracted by ESFA within the Department for Education, with the purpose of helping people improve their job prospects ensuring that there is an efficient labour market which drives growth. The service offer is available to all adults and young people living or working in England. The offer includes information and advice about learning and career management including apprenticeships and traineeships. Customers can access the service through a multi-channel offer which includes an area based service, a national contact centre and a national website. The area based service focused on adults 19+ is delivered through a multi-channel approach (face to face, telephone, digital) interacting closely with both the national contact centre and website.

The Growth Company (GC) is a Matrix accredited, Ofsted Grade 2 prime contractor of current area-based National Careers Service contracts for Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Staffordshire and Liverpool City Region, Cumbria and Lancashire - i.e. the whole of the North West region plus Staffordshire. GC is a highly experienced provider of National Careers Service, having delivered the service and its predecessor, Next Step, since 1997. GC is an experienced prime contractor and holds Merlin Standard accreditation for supply chain excellence.

GC invites bidders to express their interest to join the Growth Company's indicative supply chain that will inform GC's bid to ESFA to deliver National Careers Service from October 2018.

Responses to the EOI will be used as the first step to select suppliers to participate in the invitation to tender process (subject to GC's successful shortlisting by the ESFA).

Responses to the Expression of Interest will assessed and shortlisted bidders will be invited to submit a tender for the opportunity.

You are required to make your submission via the GC In-tend e-tendering platform.

Additional information: If you wish to apply to this opportunity, and you are not already registered on our In-tend Supplier platform you are required to complete a basic registration as a supplier at the following web address: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/manchestergrowthcompany/aspx/Home

Please note that all mandatory fields (highlighted in yellow on the In-Tend Portal) must be completed in order to register your organisation.

Once registered, you will be able to log into the system, express your interest and automatically download the documentation.