Experts at Hand: Occupational Therapy, Inclusion and Participation Service

'Experts at Hand' is designed to transform how support for children and young people with SEND is delivered, by bringing specialist expertise directly into mainstream early years, primary, secondary and post-16 settings. By embedding 'expert roles', such as occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, and specialist teachers, alongside setting staff.

The offer supports earlier identification of need, strengthens workforce confidence and capability, and provides timely, evidence-based support within everyday learning environments. The Experts at Hand offer will support mainstream settings across early years, primary, secondary and post-16, to better identify and meet the needs of children and young people with emerging or identified SEND.

It will provide dedicated professional expertise tailored to the needs of individual children and young people, through observation, assessment, and identifying appropriated targeted support to help more children and young people flourish within their settings. Norfolk County Council (NCC) is undertaking a procurement exercise and is inviting suitably qualified and experienced applicants to submit offers to deliver the Occupational Therapy, Inclusion and Participation Service.

The procurement is being conducted under regulation 11 of the Provider Selection Regime (PSR) in accordance with the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023 (the Regulations). As the Council's funding is currently confirmed until 31 March 2029, any initial contract term will end on 31 March 2029.

The Authority may, at its sole discretion, extend the Contract for up to three (3) years should additional funding become available. Any decision to extend the contract will be subject to the availability of future national funding and internal governance approval.

Accordingly, there is no guarantee that any extension will be offered. Any extension will be subject to a further Key Decision in accordance with the Authority's governance arrangements.

The value of the initial term is £3,829,100 split as follows: • Financial Year 2026/27 - £835,260 • Financial Year 2027/28 - £1,474,800 • Financial Year 2028/29 - £1,519,040 It is anticipated that the Contract will be awarded on 20 January 2027, with service delivery commencing on 22 February 2027. The procurement route adopted is a competitive process with dialogue in accordance with regulation 11 PSR.

Applicants must pass the Basic Selection Criteria (Form A) - before their Key Criteria (Form B) are considered. Applicants who fail Form A will not be considered any further and will be notified at this stage if they are unsuccessful.

Applicants that pass Form A will be evaluated against their responses in their Form B and price. Contract award will be based on the information set out within the procurement documents. The Council reserves the right to make adjustments to the structure of the Competitive Process, provided that any such adjustments do not alter the overall nature of the procurement, and are communicated transparently and applied equally to all applicants.