Economic Research and Consultancy Services Framework - Early Market Engagement

Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) was created in April 2016 and its purpose is to drive economic growth and job creation in the Tees Valley. It is a partnership of five authorities; Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar & Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees, working closely with the Local Enterprise Partnership, wider business community and other partners to make local decisions to support the growth of our economy.

The Combined Authority's remit covers the following economic policy themes, for which thematic approaches to deliver our ambitions have been developed: • Education Employment and Skills • Infrastructure (Transport and Digital) • Business Growth • Inward Investment • Innovation and circular economy solutions • Culture and Visitor Economy TVCA intends to create a framework agreement, to bring in economic consultancy services over the next 4 years and would like to conduct market engagement to obtain input and feedback in preparation for the procurement of the framework. TVCA would like to gather soft intelligence from the market and feedback on the scope of services proposed via a Request for Information (RFI).

The RFI including a draft specification can be accessed via the Pro-contract portal https://procontract.due-north.com/Opportunities/ . Please note that this exercise is not part of any pre-qualification process.

It is intended as an awareness, communication and information gthering exercise to inform the future procurement. The deadline for responses will be 17:00, 7 January 2021.

Please note that all communications and RFI submissions will be conducted via the Procontract Portal. It is free to register.