Home to School Transport and Adult Social Care Transport Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS)

Wigan Council is seeking to receive applications for admittance to a Home to School Transport and Adult Social Care Transport Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). Transport services to be provided under the DPS include home to school transport for children with special educational needs, home to college transport for young adults with special educational needs and adult social care transport.

Services may be required on a daily, weekly, fortnightly or term time only basis for young people attending special educational needs schools, mainstream schools, mainstream colleges, alternative and complementary education and residential services, and respite care; and for adults attending day care facilities owned and managed by Wigan Council, community interest companies and respite care. Clients using the service may be vulnerable and suffer from learning disabilities, behavioural problems, sensory or hearing difficulties, autistic spectrum disorder or another physical disability.

Therefore, some journeys will require that a Passenger Assistant be provided by Wigan Council to accompany them. In order to meet the variety of transport needs contractors must be able to provide as a minimum one of the following vehicle options to be considered for admittance to the DPS: (i) Standard Car (up to four seats); (ii) Accessible Taxi; (iii) Black Cab; (iv) Minibus (up to eight seats); (v) Minibus (sixteen seats); (vi) Tail Lift Vehicle (minimum of 300kg tail lift required); and, (vii) Coach.

The DPS will be used as the mechanism through which Wigan Council will procure home to school and adult social care transportation services and it will be used as a basis to enter into calls for competition with providers on the DPS. Individual contracts raised under the DPS can commence at any time once the invitation to tender for the first specific procurement under the DPS has been sent and will depend on the local circumstances of Wigan Council.

It is envisaged that the majority of the home to school contracts will run from the beginning of the Autumn term 2015/16 until the end of the academic year in which they were awarded. The DPS shall run for a period of four years from 2015 to 2019.

The closing date for initial applications to the Home to School Transport and Adult Social Care Transport DPS is Monday 18th May 2015 at 17:00. Once the invitation to tender for the first specific procurement under the DPS has been sent the DPS will be open to further applications for admittance.

Note: Within this notice the contract start and contract end dates stated indicate the period of validity of the DPS system and not to the length of individual contracts arising from the DPS. Actual contract lengths will be of variable duration. This contract notice has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) with reference number 2015/S 078-138444.