2020 Modern Slavery Victim Care Procurement

The Authority, is committed to raising awareness of the signs of modern slavery; to support victims to build a better life; and to bring perpetrators to justice. As part of this commitment the Authority is seeking to fulfil the UK's obligations to provide assistance to adult victims of human trafficking, detailed in Articles 11 and 12 of the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings (ECAT), and is procuring a new contract to provide care for adult victims of modern slavery in England and Wales.

Through this contract, accommodation, support and assistance will be provided to potential victims of modern slavery and human trafficking to assist in their recovery. The Authority will provide subsistence and support to all those where there are reasonable grounds to believe they might be a victim of human trafficking or modern slavery.

The Authority seeks a commercial partner to provide the following support and assistance: • Support Services - providing accommodation or outreach support depending on the needs of victims • 24 Hour referral services - for First Responders to refer potential victims requiring immediate support ahead of making a full referral into the National Referral Mechanism • Transport - of victims and their dependants • Translation and Interpretation - to ensure that victims have the information they need in a language they understand • Subsistence - a means of providing financial support to victims • Reach In support services - for confirmed victims after leaving the main support service to aid the transition back in to society. The contract will consist of a 6 month mobilisation period, to allow suppliers to secure accommodation, staffing and set up the service to ensure a smooth transition from the existing contract, having minimal impact on the Service Users - followed by a 5 year contract, with the option to extend by up to 3 years.

We anticipate that the services as detailed within the tender documents and supporting annexes will be no greater than £160m over the initial five year term (including mobilisation). The low and high contract values given include scope for: a) the option to extend the contract from 5 to 8 years; b) volumetric variations and c) legislative or policy changes.

The scope of the contract is in line with current legislation, policy and projected volumes of Service Users. The Authority, at this stage does not commit to provide the full contract value and/or any additional services, as the need for these will be reviewed throughout the lifetime of the contract.

Additional information: Respondents are requested to express an interest by Thursday 31st October 2019; the process for expression of interest and requesting further information is set out below. For the avoidance of doubt, please note that Respondents are required to express an interest separately for this competition regardless of their involvement in the previous Market Engagement activities for this project.

Any such involvement does not constitute an expression of interest for the competition advertised in this notice. The Home Office uses an eSourcing toolkit to enable its sourcing activities to be conducted over the internet.

In order to express an interest, please follow the steps set out below. The procurement will be managed electronically via the Crown Commercial Service's e-Sourcing Suite.

To participate in this procurement, participants must first be registered on the e-Sourcing Suite. If you have not yet registered on the e-Sourcing Suite, this can be done online at https://gpsesourcing.cabinetoffice.gov.uk by following the link 'Register for CCS e-Sourcing'.

Please note that, to register, you must have a valid DUNS number (as provided by Dun and Bradstreet) for the organisation which you are registering and who will be entering into a contract if invited to do so. Full instructions for registration and use of the system can be found at http://gps.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/i-am.

The email should be entitled "2020MSVC Procurement - Expression of Interest" and contain the following details: your organisation's name, your contact name, e-mail address and telephone number. Any expressions of interest not submitted in the required format (or containing the requested information) may be rejected.

Participants are requested to express interest by Thursday 31st October 2019, to allow sufficient time for the tender administrative process and submission of bids. The Authority requires new Participants to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) in order to be invited to participate in the competition for this project.

On receipt of an email detailed above, the Authority will either confirm receipt of an NDA as part of market engagement or provide access to the NDA document through the eSourcing portal. If required, the Authority will expect Participants to download and re attach a signed copy of the NDA to the event.

When saving the 'pdf' document, please ensure that you include the participant organisation's name in the filename. Once a correctly signed NDA is received by the Authority, Participants will be invited to the ITT and will be able to access all of the procurement documentation.

The closing date for tender submissions will be 11.00am on Wednesday 11th December 2019. For technical assistance on the use of the eSourcing Suite contact; Crown Commercial Service Helpdesk: freephone: +44 3450103503 or email: supplier@ccs.gsi.gov.uk.