Employability and Health Related Services Umbrella Agreement (EHRSUA)

Employability and Health Related Services Umbrella Agreement (EHRSUA) Current Design Proposal Following PreMarket Engagement Event 1

Background On Wednesday 30 October we held the pre-market supplier engagement event in Birmingham where we presented our initial design proposals for the Employability and Health Related Services Umbrella Agreement (EHRSUA). At the event there were a number of round-table discussions where we invited your feedback on a number of areas: Views on an Umbrella Agreement vs Open Procurement for any future opportunities? Views on the features of the initial design of EHRSUA presented Review Points for the suggested tiering system, how often would this be suitable? Progression within the agreement (ladder) from tier to tier Number of maximum places within each tier Thoughts overall on the tiered approach? Potential for consortia/Special Purpose Vehicles Does this initial EHRSUA design address issues identified from the current Umbrella Agreement in place? (UAEHRS) Please note your input is valuable and required prior to the issue of the Invitation to Tender expected in January 2020. Official - Sensitive 2

You said The tiered agreement of EHRSUA should represent a ‘pyramid approach’ as opposed to a standard set number of places within all tiers, whereby the number of suppliers within each tier increases as you move down the tiers Tier 3 could be suitable for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) but needs to be tailored to remove the cost/complexity barriers. SME’s keen to work as a Prime provider but unsure of application process, also their size restricts their ability to cover the Contract Package Areas (CPA) SME’s expressed concerns that bids would be awarded to same prime providers – Lack of opportunity for SME’s Assurance needs to be provided that the tier system is fair and managed correctly and there needs to be an understanding of how SME’s work in regards to cash flow. Timescales for when we intend to go to market are a serious concern and require reconsideration as a matter of urgency Official - Sensitive 3

We Listened You suggested changes to the maximum number of suppliers within Tiers one and two. As a result, we have now refined this - Tier one will now have five, whereas Tier Two will now be increased to eight. Following feedback, we will reconsider Tier three – for now this has been removed from EHRSUA. We acknowledge your concerns and intend to take further time developing this tier, ensuring that it is more consistent to the needs of the SME market. There will be further consultation with you all as this develops. To address concerns with the application process, we will ensure that all of our communications and guides are reviewed, made clearer and there will be a mechanism to raise any questions or concerns throughout the bidding period via our Jaggaer IT system. We will ensure there is a Virtual Data Room (VDR) available on Jaggaer where you can access latest information to help support you. To access, you need to access Jaggaer Fileshare, via the link https ://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.shtml? ncp 1575284682366.42264-1 select the icon on the left hand side menu with two documents and arrows and select Files and Directories from the subsequent expanding menus. You will then be able to access the VDR by selecting ‘EHRSUA Virtual Data Room’. Official - Sensitive 4

We Listened (cont.) DWP have a legal duty to treat all bidders participating in a competitive tender process equally and without discrimination. We will ensure a level playing field between participants while maintaining commercial confidentiality. The process/policy when evaluating bids is to ensure it is conducted fairly, without prejudice. We have taken on-board your concerns regarding the initial timeline and revised the date for a potential ItT to week commencing 6 January 2020. Whether you bid for EHRSUA or not, all commercial documents will be made available in the Virtual Data Room (VDR). We will seek to do this for all procurements so everyone has access to the same level of information, even if you are only considering sub-contracting opportunities in the future. Please note that on the accessing any documents within the VDR, you agree to ensuring that any information downloaded is treated confidentially and not disclosed or shared with any other parties outside your organisations. Official - Sensitive 5

Structure and Tiers Values Tier 1 All Call Offs Over 6m Tier 2 All Call Offs between 2m and 6m Please note: Following feedback at our pre-market engagement event, we will reconsider Tier three. For now this has been removed from EHRSUA. We intend to take further time developing this tier, ensuring that it is more consistent to the needs of the SME market. There will be further consultation with you all as this develops during 2020. Official - Sensitive 6

Maximum Number of Providers per Tier Tier 1 All Call Offs Over 6m Max of 5 providers per LOT Tier 2 All Call Offs between 2m and 6m Max of 8 providers per LOT Providers will be able to move between tiers at designated review points dependant on a range criteria that we are currently considering. Additional places may be available if existing organisations are temporarily suspended, e.g. due to poor performance for a pre-determined period of time. Awarded places can be reallocated if an organisation leaves or is removed. Official - Sensitive 7

What is the proposed Umbrella Agreement LOTs? The Umbrella Agreement is divided into seven Geographical Lots : Scotland North East England North West England Wales Central England Central England (LOT 1) North East England (LOT 2) North West England (LOT 3) Southern England (LOT 4) Home Counties (LOT 5) Wales (LOT 6) Scotland (LOT 7) National – Great Britain (LOT 8) – automatically awarded a place if awarded more than two LOTs Home Counties Southern England Official - Sensitive 8

Flexibility of LOTs for future call-offs from EHRSUA Example 1 - Splitting an individual LOT into smaller LOT’s We may make a decision to run a call-off competition by splitting an individual LOT into smaller LOT’s. For example, we may run a competition in Lot 3 (North West) but split this into smaller LOT’s, for example to cover the Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire areas as three separate LOT’s. Example 2 – The joining of LOT’s together using the National – Great Britain LOT – 8 We may make a decision to run a call-off competition for the ‘North of England’ whereby we would join together LOT’s 2 and 3 to make one larger LOT. We will use LOT 8 and split this into a smaller LOT to cover the area(s) required. This competition would only be available to suppliers who have been successfully awarded a place on LOT 8. Official - Sensitive 9

Features of the Umbrella Agreement Implement review points throughout the lifecycle of the four year agreement. Would like to cap the number of providers on each of the tiers. Take into account existing contract Performance when we review the agreement and will take into account poor performance, e.g. where organisations are under formal performance we may limit/suspend the right to bid for new call offs. It has different requirements than the Dynamic Purchasing System. Value of call offs may be limited to group level value to mitigate supplier dominance at market or CPA level. Official - Sensitive 10

EHRSUA Potential Key Dates Activity . Date Publication of the Contract Notice 2 January 2020 Publication of EHRSUA ItT to all Potential Bidders w/c 06 January 2020 Question & Answer Log (Q&A) - Set up and run an online/electronic Q&A facility 06 January – 24 January 2020 Deadline for submission of questions 24 January 2020 @ 10am Final Q&A Log issued 27 January 2020 @ 5PM Deadline for return of EHRSUA ItT Response (10am) 31 January 2020 @ 10am Notification issued to successful and unsuccessful bidders. 19 March 2019 Contract Award 31 March 2020 Contract Go-Live 1 April 2020 Official - Sensitive 11

Next Steps: We want to hear your views, thoughts and comments on the latest design. The attached survey has been developed to enable you to provide feedback on the latest design. Please note the deadline for the completion of the survey will be Friday 20th December @ 10am. Your feedback and input is valuable to the future design of EHRSUA before the issuing of the Invitation to Tender expected in January 2020. We will continue to utilise the Virtual Data Room to share further information around the EHRSUA design and provide important updates. If there are any questions you have regarding EHRSUA please continue to send them to our shared mailbox [email protected] Official - Sensitive 12