Cultural Commissioning 2019

Funding is available to organisations to deliver participatory arts, culture and/or heritage community programmes by, with and for disadvantaged Reading residents in order to contribute to improving people's life chances and their quality of life . Programmes will address the needs of local people, particularly those who are hard-to-reach and less likely to access cultural opportunities.

The fund is part of Reading, Place of Culture, supported by the Great Place Scheme, funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, Arts Council England and Historic England. The three funding strands for 2019/20 are:  Strand 1 - Cultural short Breaks Provision - £30,000 (Funded in partnership with Brighter Futures for Children, Education & Early Help Services)  Strand 2 - Elderly Care - £15,000  Strand 3 - Mental Health and Wellbeing - £30,000 (funded in partnership with Berkshire Community Foundation) The purpose of the fund is to enable arts, culture and heritage organisations to make a step-change in how they work with the voluntary and community sectors and public services to collaboratively contribute to meeting local social objectives .

Professionals from diverse sectors working together brings complementary expertise together to better support, engage, and inspire communities. Additional information: Organisations interested in expressing an interest in this procurement should download the procurement documents which are available on the Council's e-tendering system at: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/readingbc/aspx/Home and complete as instructed.

The Portal is free of charge - to register please follow the supplier registration guidance which is available on the Portal. Please note: you must register your interest via the Council's e-tendering portal if you intend to submit a tender.

Interested parties must log onto the Council's e-tendering portal at: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/readingbc, to express an interest and download the procurement documents. All communications regarding this procurement exercise will be conducted through the Council's e-tendering portal including requests for clarifications or general enquiries.

The procurement documents will be available for download up until the closing time and date for tender submissions, it is the organisation's responsibility to ensure that they download the documents in ample time to ensure that they can be completed and returned electronically, along with supporting documents, prior to the closing time and date stipulated. Before completing the tender, potential providers/suppliers should ensure that the e-mail address that has been used to register their organisation will be checked regularly as the Council's e-tendering system will generate automatic notifications to this e-mail address when there are updates, changes or messages sent relating to the project. Potential bidders should also check that their organisation's details are correct and kept up to date.