Connect to Work

Staffordshire County Council is engaging with the market to better understand the interest and capacity the market has in providing the Services (in their entirety or specific elements or a proportion of specific elements). You are required to express your organisation's initial interest in the project by completing the Expression of Interest by no later than Friday 7th February 2025 if possible.

The PIN notice informs relevant economic operators, that the Council is seeking to undertake market engagement to inform their procurement for the delivery of the Connect to Work programme in Staffordshire.

This Prior Information Notice (PIN) is intended to alert providers to an opportunity to deliver the Connect to Work programme for Staffordshire County Council.

Connect to Work will be a dual-model high fidelity supported employment voluntary programme, delivered by clusters of Local Authorities. It will expand the use of the proven five stage Supported Employment model of 'place, train and maintain'. In 26/27, in England and Wales, Connect to Work funding will support around 100,000 disabled people with health conditions and those with complex barriers to employment to get into and on in work. In Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Connect to Work will support 1,900 programme starts per year, at its peak.

Connect to Work will complement other existing provision including the Department for Work and Pensions' WorkWell programme, NHS England's Individual Placement and Support for People with Severe Mental Illness programme and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities' Individual Placement and Support for Drug and Alcohol Dependency programme, and other locally led programmes.

Connect to Work will be targeted at Disabled people, those with health conditions and those with other complex barriers to employment. Within these groups the primary focus for this voluntary programme will be those of working age who are not required to seek work as a condition of benefit receipt (who have often been overlooked for employment support). We'd expect appropriate participants to have never worked or to have not worked for around 6 months or more. It will also be available for those same groups where someone is in precarious employment and needs additional support to sustain employment. And those who are required to seek work, but whose needs are best met by supported employment. There is no requirement to be in receipt of benefits.

A market engagement event will be held towards the end of March giving the Council the opportunity to present the service and what procurement process will be followed. The estimated procurement launch date is March/April 2025.

The e-tendering system used by Staffordshire County Council is Proactis. Providers are encouraged to register now (link provided below) as this will save time when the tender goes live. https://supplierlive.proactisp2p.com