Governance Recruitment Service

Background: The Government is committed to delivering education excellence everywhere. We want every child to attend a good school to get the best start in life and enable them to reach their full potential regardless of their background.

In an increasingly academised, school-led, self-improving system, robust school governance is crucial to complement growing school autonomy and the growth of multi-academy trusts. The Government’s vision and expectations for the governance of schools and MATs is set out in the Governance Handbook.

The Government has for many years funded support to governing boards to help them recruit the high calibre people they need to deliver effective governance. Going forward, we want to provide stability through multi-year funding through a contract covering four financial years, commencing on 1 September 2016 and ending 31 March 2020, with the possibility of a further one year contract extension in 2020-21.

Brief description of service: The service will: • Help boards recruit the highest calibre people possible. • Support the maximum possible number of governing boards within available resources. • Prioritise the boards most in need of finding skilled people and areas of the country where education standards and capacity to improve are weakest, whilst maintaining support to any school wishing to use the service. • Provide effective screening, matching, and as far as possible training, to maximise the impact of the people introduced onto boards. • Engage more employers to support governance through for example encouraging their staff to be involved in governance. • Raise awareness across the system of how to structure and populate a highly skilled governing board. • Establish a new national channel through which governing boards can recruit an experienced and skilled chair. Estimated value: DfE estimate the contract value to be up to £710k between 1 September 2016 and the end of the financial year 2016-17, and up to £1m in each financial year to 2019-20, inclusive of all VAT.

The contract will include break clauses at the end of each financial year and an option to extend for one additional financial year. Length of contract: A period of 4 years (ending 31 March 2020), including break clauses (related to KPIs) at the end of each year and the option to extend for up to a further year at the end of the contract.

The scope of this contract may be extended following future, as yet unknown, developments which fall within the scope of the original contract aims, up to a further value of no more than 50% of the original contract value without the need to tender. Any such changes including revised costs would be agreed with the contractor.

Additional information: Proposed timetable (may be subject to change) Advert placed in Contracts Finder 02.03.16 Supplier event 17.03.16 Last day for submission of queries (5pm) 29.03.16 Last day for DfE to respond to queries 31.03.16 Deadline for tender responses to be received. 15.04.16 Clarification Meetings if required w/c 25.04.16 Department announcement of preferred bidder 06.05.16 Contract award 27.05.16 Please note that the above timetable is indicative only. Given that we are not holding a selection stage it is difficult to judge the number of bids which may be received and require evaluation.

We will inform all bidders as soon as possible if we need to amend the above plan. DfE intends to contract with either a supplier who proposes to offer the whole service (with or without subcontractors) or a consortium of suppliers who have joined together to offer the whole service.

At the bidding stage a consortium must be either a legal entity or have a lead organisation which is authorised to act on behalf of its members with which DfE can contract. Suitably qualified Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) who consider that they have the necessary skills and experience to support the programme are encouraged to submit a bid.

The Department reserves the right to finalise payment mechanisms, based on the preferred supplier’s bid, as part of formalising the contract. On Thursday 17 March from 12:15 to 16:00, there will be a ‘Supplier Event’ held at: Department for Education, Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BT This event will allow potential bidders to discuss requirements in more detail with the Department.

We strongly encourage you to attend if you think you are likely to submit a bid for this work. Please note that owing to limited space available, a maximum of two representatives per organisation will be admitted.

Please contact us to register your interest in bidding even if you are unable to attend the supplier event. Replies to clarifications questions will be posted on this advert.