Court Appointed Intermediary Services

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is seeking to engage with the market for the provision of Court Appointed Intermediary Services. These services will be provided in the courts and tribunals in England and Wales and are specifically focused on the appointment of intermediaries who can be instructed to provide an assessment of a person's communication needs along with providing recommendations on measures that could be put in place by the court to support a vulnerable people, young people and children and other individuals who may need assistance during court proceedings.The intermediary may also be required to attend court to provide such assistance and support.

For the avoidance of doubt, the MoJ is only seeking to engage with the market in relation to intermediary services that currently fall outside the remit of the MoJ Witness Intermediary Scheme (MoJ WIS). All requests for intermediary support for witnesses in criminal cases will continue to be managed via the MoJ WIS.

The MoJ is developing its commercial strategy for the provision of Court Appointed Intermediary Services to courts and tribunals in England and Wales and is interested in understanding the market's capacity and capability to bid for, and provide, these services.

The MoJ welcomes expressions of interest from suppliers in this market which wish to receive further information or would submit bids to deliver services were a competition to be run, in the future, to award a contract or framework.

The purpose of this notice is to enable suppliers to express interest, which will assist MoJ in better understanding the current capability and capacity in the market. Before any future formal procurement process begins a further notice would be published and a period of market engagement undertaken.

Interested parties are required to complete the following actions:

1) Register an account through the MoJ Sourcing Portal at https://ministryofjusticecommercial.bravosolution.co.uk

2) Navigate to the left side menu and click on 'PQQs Open to All Suppliers' > find and click on 'PQQ_186 - Court Appointed Intermediary Services (Market Engagement Only)'

3) You can express an interest by clicking 'Express interest'. The MoJ encourages interested parties to populate and upload the questionnaire contained under the 'Buyer Attachments' section of the PQQ shortly afterwards, in order to provide more detailed feedback to MoJ.

Please note that the estimated date for publicaton of a contract notice is a very early estimate and will be reviewed following market feedback from this notice and any future market engagement.

Additional information: The MoJ intends to use an e-sourcing system in any subsequent procurement exercise and reserves the right to use a reverse auction.

The publication of this Early Engagement is a voluntary publication and does not represent an acknowledgement regarding the applicability of procurement or other rules governing the potential future process nor a commitment by the MoJ to initiate, run or complete a full procurement competition in relation to the contract as described. The MoJ reserves the right not to run any competition for the services.

Nothing in this notice shall generate any contractual obligations prior to the signature of agreement contract following completion of the tender process. The MoJ reserves the right to reject all or any of the bids for the competition and not to appoint any potential provider, without any liability on its part.

Transparency:

HM Government requires that tender documentation issued by Government departments for contracts with a value exceeding 10 000 GBP over the life of the contract are published online (http://www.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk) for the general public.

In the event a contract is awarded following a tendering exercise, the contract will be published on the Contracts Finder website, subject to the statutory grounds for redaction as set out in the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The MoJ may use its discretion to redact information to protect key commercial interests or on prescribed grounds. Therefore, bidders who wish information not to be published if successful should secure agreement with the MoJ prior to submission. Only documentation relating to awarded contracts will be published. Key commercial interests, trade secrets and commercial interests which would be prejudiced by publication, following the tests in section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 maybe redacted.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/docs/foi-exemption-s43.pdf

The prescribed grounds for redaction are: (a) national security; (b) personal data; (c) information protected by intellectual property law; (d) information which it is not in the public interest to disclose (following the tests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000); (e) third party confidential information; (f) IT security; or (g) prevention of fraud.

Freedom of information (FOI) The Freedom of Information Act came fully into force in 2005. If any organisation considers that any information supplied by them is either commercially sensitive or confidential in nature, this should be highlighted and the reasons for its sensitivities specified. In such cases the relevant material will in response to FOI requests be examined in the light of exemptions provided for in the Act.