Procurement and management of a trial of evidence-based home learning environment support programmes in the North of England

To launch a call for proposals and manage the delivery and evaluation of trials of evidence-based home learning environment support programmes in the North of England. The successful bidder will be responsible for:

• launching a call for proposals;
• assessing proposals and making recommendations to the Department for Education on which programmes to trial based on their analysis of the evidence base;
• identifying potential trial areas and making recommendations to the Department for Education; procuring and managing sub-contracts with home learning environment support programmes and independent evaluators - including scoping out the design and delivery of randomised control trials;
• brokering arrangements between providers of home learning environment support programmes, evaluators and trial areas; and
• publishing and disseminating the results of trials

The significant majority of the contract is to pay for the delivery and evaluation of trials, which will be subject to separate competitive processes, administered by the contract holder. We expect bidders to show how they will keep their management costs as low as possible to maximise funding for the trials themselves, while also making effective recommendations to DfE on which trials to take forward.

Additional information: The successful bidder will need the following attributes

• Skills and experience in assessing the strength of the evidence base for programmes aimed at improving child outcomes, particularly early child development or educational attainment.
• Skills and experience in commissioning the delivery and evaluation of randomised control trials and other quasi-experimental impact evaluation approaches of programmes aimed at improving child outcomes, particularly child development or educational attainment
• Skills and experience in launching a call for proposals and managing comparable or similar projects
• Capacity to manage a project of this scale, including evidence of staff resource to deliver high quality outputs promptly and to meet challenging timescales

Please submit requests for a copy of the invitation to tender documents or additional information to Trial.HLE@education.gov.uk.

We will accept tenders via email or post. Tenders should be submitted to: Trial.HLE-BIDS@education.gov.uk or Margaret Leopold, Level 2, Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BT no later than 17:00 on 6 February 2018