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The hot topic of conversation for recruiters specialising in the education sector at the moment is the upcoming CCS Supply Teachers framework. There’s also a lot of marketing from bid writers stirring up discussion (which is good!), but perhaps not a huge amount of straightforward information out there to help recruiters make informed decisions about…
Read MoreGENERAL Critical Timescales Contract noticed published – 8th August 2025 Deadline for receipt of clarification questions – 3pm, 3rd September 2025. Deadline for clarification responses – 12th September 2025. Deadline for submission of the bid – 3pm, 22nd September 2025. Intention to award letters published to all bidders – 12th January 2026. Framework award –…
Read MoreCritical Timescales Deadline for clarification questions – 12 noon, 14th August 2025. Deadline for submission of the tender – 12 noon, 1st September 2025. Notification of award decision & commencement of standstill period – 3rd October 2025. Period of framework- 9th November 2025 to 10th November 2027 with option to extend for a further 24…
Read MoreIt’s a tough market out there, and whilst being on a recruitment Framework may not guarantee you business right now, these things are cyclical and its probably better to have a place on the main Frameworks in your sector (even if they are quiet at the moment) than not… That said, making sensible “bid/no bid”…
Read MoreThis tender covers supply of medical and dental agency workers to cover ad hoc/short term assignments in Northern Ireland for: Belfast Health and Social Care Trust Northern Health and Social Care Trust South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust Southern Health and Social Care Trust Western Health and Social Care Trust Contract duration – 24…
Read MoreThe current CCS PR2 Framework (RM6229) expires on 28th March 2026 and up until a couple of months ago, we all assumed that there would be a PR3 in due course…..but this is not to be. What’s replacing PR2? Existing suppliers on the CCS Permanent Recruitment 2 Framework received notification from the Crown Commercial Service…
Read MoreTender: The supply of Agency Nurses, Midwives, Health Visitors, Healthcare Assistants and Operating Department Practitioners. Critical Timescales Deadline for submission – 2pm, 15th January 2025. Contract dates – 1st March 2025 – 28th February 2028 (with option to extend for a further 12 months) Registration & Accessing the Documents To access the documents, you must…
Read MoreCritical Timescales We are awaiting clarification of timescales for some key elements of the tender from SUPC. This section will be updated once these have been received. Publication of Contract Notice – 18.11.24 Deadline for sending clarification questions to SUPC for SQ – awaiting timeframe from SUPC Submission of Stage 1 – SQ – 06.01.25…
Read MoreThe pre-award audits for HealthTrust Europe TWSIII are finally over and now it’s all about implementing the new contract to turn all that hard work into some well-earned business. Naturally focus is now on building relationships with Participating Authorities to achieve direct supply agreements and win mini competitions. But all that said, don’t take your…
Read MoreCongratulations – you’ve just won a place on a new public sector framework…..what do you need to do next to turn this business win into £££…..but how? There are a number of areas that you need to think about in order to prepare your business and staff to start supplying under the framework and achieve…
Read MoreHave you been asked to provide a ‘Carbon Reduction Plan’ as part of a recent tender process and aren’t sure where to start? Brunton Bid Writing has partnered with Litmus Sustainability to produce a significantly discounted package and help you through the process. In this blog, Litmus’ Director of Sustainability, Laurence Adams, breaks down what…
Read MoreTHIS BLOG HAS BEEN UPDATED ON 13.09.24 AFTER ANNOUNCEMENT BY NEW LABOUR GOVERNMENT THAT A NEW NATIONAL PROCUREMENT POLICY STATEMENT (NPPS) WILL BE PRODUCED. The NPPS is a statotyr statement that allows the Government to set and communicate the wider policy objectives to which it expects public procurement to contribute (e.g. economic growth and opening…
Read MoreCritical Timescales Stage 1 – Selection Questionnaire – Submission Deadline 1pm, Friday 15th December 2024. Stage 2 – Award Questionnaire – ITT due to be published 8th March 2024 with a submission deadline of 1pm, Monday 15th April 2024. Contract Award date – Monday 2nd September 2024. Lotting Structure & Services This tender will cover…
Read MoreCritical Timescales Stage 1 – Selection Questionnaire – Submission Deadline 1pm, Friday 15th December 2024. Stage 2 – Award Questionnaire – ITT due to be published 2nd February 2024 with a submission deadline of 1pm, Tuesday 5th March 2024. Contract Award date – Monday 8th April 2024. Lotting Structure & Services This tender will cover…
Read MoreGENERAL (NB LOTS 1-4 ONLY) Critical Timescales Deadline for receipt of clarification questions – 5pm, 6th March 2023. Deadline for Workforce Alliance responses to clarification questions – 8th March 2023. Deadline for submission of the bid – 11.59pm, 17th March 2023 – now extended to 14th April 2023. Intention to award letters published to all…
Read MoreThe following information was obtained from the webinar run by Workforce Alliance on 27th January 2023. This webinar was designed to provide prospective bidders with information about some elements of the bid, particularly in relation to economic and financial standing and social value. The following is an overview of the information provided in this webinar…
Read MoreCritical Timescales Contract notice and ITT pack published – Friday, 21st October 2022. Deadline for asking clarification questions – 5pm, Monday 7th November 2022. Deadline for CCS to provide responses to clarifications – 5pm, Wednesday 16th November 2022. Bid submission deadline – 3pm, Monday 21st November 2022. Issue of intention to award notices to bidders…
Read MoreThe Workforce Alliance has now published its tender documents for framework RM6333 for international healthcare professional recruitment and associated services. The following document provides a short overview for this bid to aid bid/no bid decisions. It also provides details on our pricing and services. Critical Timescales ITT Issued – 15th August 2022 Deadline for Receipt…
Read MoreWhen I’m asked to review proposals written by my clients, the biggest mistakes I see are: They’ve created a marketing document! It’s all about the agency, and focuses purely on what they want to tell the customer (rather than what the customer actually wants to know)! It’s too generic and isn’t aligned to the specific…
Read MorePPN 06/21 Carbon Reduction Plan The UK Government amended the Climate Change Act 2008 in 2019 by introducing a target of at least a 100% reduction in the net UK carbon account (i.e. reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 1990 levels) by 2050. This is otherwise known as the ‘Net Zero’ target. This has…
Read MoreGeneral Information about the Framework This is a multi-supplier framework for recruitment of temporary and fixed term teachers and non-teaching staff for UK schools, colleges and educational establishments including nurseries, pupil referral units and children’s centres. Roles include head teachers, senior leaders and qualified/non-qualified teachers and education support staff (including supervisors and teaching assistants for…
Read MoreGeneral Information about the Framework This framework covers the supply of permanent, fixed term appointments and inward secondments throughout the UK to UK public sector bodies including central Government (and their arms-length bodies and agencies) and non-departmental public bodies as well as the wider public sector and NHS for clinical recruitment and general recruitment (non-clinical…
Read MoreAdded value…..you’ve read several hundred pages of specification, T&C and annexes and answered what feels like 500 (often seemingly repetitive) tender questions detailing exactly how you are going to provide the service for the price of two buttons and a safety pin and then you come across this…. “Please detail what added value you will…
Read MoreCritical Timescales Deadline for receipt of clarification questions – 3pm, 7th April 2021 Deadline for submission of the tender – 3pm, 14th April 2021 Registration & Accessing the Documents To access the documents and complete your tender, you must follow the instructions on the following link: https://etendersni.gov.uk/epps/cft/prepareViewCfTWS.do?resourceId=3339364 Tender Breakdown Complete Eligibility envelope (applicable to all…
Read MoreI’m slightly afraid to mention the word “Brexit”, but I’m going to, as it’s all change as far as finding UK recruitment tenders goes! Since 1st January 2021, OJEU no longer publishes new UK tenders and this function has been taken over by the Government’s new “Find a Tender” service for high value contracts (usually…
Read MoreAt Brunton Bid Writing, we’ve decided to put aside some time in January to update some of our documents, and this includes all of the “freebies” on our website. We’ve now got the following documents available for you to download free of charge: 10 Top Tips for Writing Recruitment Tenders – as it sounds, this…
Read MoreJust before Christmas, the Government published a green paper on “Transforming Public Procurement”. This is designed to “overhaul their outdated public procurement regime” and coincides with the UK taking control of its own public sector procurement post Brexit. This is a green paper, so anything could change during the consultation period between now and 10th…
Read MoreThis tender is to supply agency nurses, midwives, ODPs and care assistants Critical Timescales Deadline for submission of the PQQ (SQ) – 4pm, 14th January 2021. Registration & Accessing the Documents To access the documents, you must first register on the following link: https://etenderwales.bravosolution.co.uk/home.html You can then follow the instructions in the documents and on…
Read MoreI’ve recently spent a bit of time with a couple of highly credible and experienced freelance procurement professionals and I know you won’t believe it, but they were human! What’s more they had a sense of humour, weren’t “jobsworths” and contrary to popular belief they don’t spend their evenings and weekends plotting new ways to…
Read MoreThis month we have a guest blog written by experienced procurement professional Chris Williams MCIPS APMP. Chris’s background in both public and private sector procurement (includng over 6 years with the Crown Commercial Service) gives us an invaluable glimpse into the expectations of our buyers, so we can gain ideas from a different perspective on…
Read MoreHaving recently completed the HTE National & International Permanent Recruitment ITT, we developed a great model for answering HTE’s qualitative tender questions. This model will help you to secure maximum points on the recently published HTE Total Workforce Solutions II ITT. HTE has been very helpful on this tender by telling us EXACTLY what they…
Read MoreIn this blog I share my top tip for writing a winning bid – and that is to answer the question……no more and no less. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? Yet, when analysing client bids, I constantly see copy and pasted answers that comprise reams of text from a bid library that somebody wrote in…
Read MorePQQ (SQ) – GENERAL Critical Timescales Deadline for receipt of clarification questions – 20th January 2020. Deadline for HTE to provide responses to clarification questions – 23rd January 2020. Deadline for submission of the PQQ (SQ) – 2pm, 29th January 2020. Please note that HTE uses both PQQ and SQ in their terminology in this…
Read MorePQQ (SQ) – GENERAL Critical Timescales Deadline for receipt of clarification questions – 1pm, 11th December 2019 Deadline for HTE to provide responses to clarification questions – 16th December 2019 Deadline for submission of the PQQ (SQ) – 1pm, 23rd December 2019 Please note that HTE uses both PQQ and SQ in their terminology in…
Read MoreWell – here we are, 11 weeks into surely the longest and most confusing tender of all time! There have been 8 tranches of clarifications with over 850 questions and answers, so it’ll be easy to miss something on this NHS Clinical Tender. We’ve put together the following information/checklist to try and help you to…
Read MorePLEASE NOTE: This blog has been updated on 20th August after reviewing the clarification questions and answers provided by Workforce Alliance. Additional information has been inserted in green! So the long awaited Workforce Alliance tender for supplying staff to the NHS is finally LIVE! This framework is combines the CCS, CPP, LPP and NHS Procurement…
Read MoreGeneral Critical Timescales Deadline for questions – 5pm, 9th May 2019. Deadline for CCS responses to clarifications – 5pm, 13th May 2019. Deadline for submission of the bid – 3pm, 23rd May 2019. Clarification Questions Questions, clarification and queries must be asked using the facility on the “eSourcing Suite” or portal. Try to ensure the…
Read MoreWe have all been waiting with bated breath for the CCS Health Sector Resourcing Framework to land for several months, and now we have received some clarification regarding their plans for the provision of healthcare workforce services (including temporary clinical and non-clinical agency workers). It appears that there will be a coming together of the…
Read MoreEver wondered how your competitors get those elusive last few marks on a tender? The answer is probably that they provide really solid proof and evidence in their answers. Theoretical answers are fine – by all means tell the Evaluator how you do it…..but make it more compelling by providing specific examples of where you…
Read MoreOne good thing about public sector tenders is the depth and quality of the feedback that you receive – and detailed feedback such as that provided by the CCS is a great (and sometimes painful) way of learning how tenders are scored. The CCS’s marking scheme on their recent Permanent Recruitment Framework really showcases the…
Read MoreWord and character counts are the procurement professional’s way of saying “get to the point”. When we write proposals and tenders, we tend to become verbose – waxing lyrical and using lots and lots of big words to try to impress the evaluator. What actually happens is that you unintentionally bore the evaluator, leaving them…
Read MoreCCS Supply Teachers Framework General Information Critical Timescales Deadline for questions – 5pm, 16th May 2018. Deadline for CCS responses to clarifications – 5pm, 23rd May 2018. Deadline for submission of the bid – 3pm, 30th May 2018. Clarification Questions Questions, clarification and queries for the CCS Supply Teachers framework must be asked using the…
Read MoreCCS Permanent Recruitment Tender – General Information Critical Timescales Deadline for questions – 5pm, 17th April 2018. Deadline for submission of the bid – 3pm, 2nd May 2018. Clarification Questions Questions, clarification and queries must be asked using the facility on the “eSourcing Suite” or portal. Try to ensure the question is specific and clear,…
Read MoreSo the much awaited ESPO Strategic HR Services Tender has now been published, and we’re all ploughing through about 300 pages of specification, ITT documents, terms & conditions, and submission questions. As we’ve already been commissioned to work on this by a number of clients, we thought it would be helpful to share our overview…
Read MoreCCS Permanent Recruitment Framework After our meeting with the CCS on 22nd January, we have gathered some new information about the planned structure, lotting strategy and timescale of this tender. Originally advertised as being published in January, we have been advised that it will now be released in the first 2 weeks in February. The…
Read MoreHard sell marketing isn’t our style, but with two large CCS recruitment frameworks on the horizon we’re hearing stories from clients and prospects alike about bid writing companies using aggresive marketing and scaremongering tactics to try to sign them up to five figure fees for providing outsourced tender writing support/services. So, I thought it might…
Read MoreIn November, the CCS is planning to publish a tender opportunity for a totally new national framework for provision of supply teachers. The CCS and DfE have conducted a pre-market engagement exercise which provides some useful insights into how they anticipate the framework will operate. Here are the key elements that we believe will be…
Read MoreMany senior level public sector roles have to go through a procurement process now, particularly in areas such as Central Government, Local Authorities and the NHS. Alternatively you may have been to see a client who has an executive role and everything has been going swimmingly until they utter the dreaded words: “perhaps you could…
Read MoreAs of September 2016, all contracting authorities in England (and most of those in Wales & Northern Ireland) have been legally obliged to replace the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) with the new Selection Questionnaire (SQ). This has been done to align us with European procurement legislation; and with the purpose of making it easier for SMEs…
Read MoreI’m getting a lot of calls from recruitment agencies with questions about a “Modern Slavery Statement” as this subject is appearing more and more in tenders. This is because companies with a turnover of over £36 million per annum are now obliged to publish a modern slavery statement under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and…
Read MoreThe CPP National Clinical Staffing Framework tender has recently been published (submission deadline 19th April 2016) and it’s demanding a lot of documented policies and procedures! Possibly the largest piece of work is putting together the verification, policy and procedure documents required in Annex B7. These are not only questions that you can pass or…
Read MoreThere are lots of awards about at the moment, but sadly it’s often not the best company that wins them, but the one with the most well written and compelling awards nominations. So here’s some advice to help you showcase your business and win those prestigious accolades! Bear in mind that the judges have to…
Read MoreNow that summer is over, if the trend of the past 5 years continues, public sector recruitment bids will come thick and fast from now until the end of the year. Some significant frameworks are already mid tender, with Procurement for Housing and Scottish Procurement, but the big ones are yet to drop. Here we…
Read MoreYou’ll often see a tender opportunity that on the surface looks really interesting, but writing tenders is incredibly time consuming and expensive so it’s vital that you are selective and only bid for business that: You’ve got a good chance of winning That fits with your core business and that you have a proven track…
Read MoreDiversity questions in tenders are often viewed with scepticism by recruiters, however tendering processes are increasingly weighted in favour of those organisations with diversity initiatives in place, therefore by improving your approach to diversity, you should also be able to improve your tender results! We’ve therefore grilled Dawn Milman-Hurst, a leading Diversity Consultant and the…
Read MoreI review tenders written by recruitment agencies for a living, and the single most common mistake I see is poor use of the copy and paste function in PQQs, tenders and proposals. If I can spot a “set piece” which has been pasted into a tender a hundred miles off, you can be sure that…
Read MoreOK – so maybe I didn’t think this up all by myself…..actually I stole it from a friend’s Facebook page (originally courtesy of The Gutter Bookshop, Dublin), but I think it puts across in a single page some of the most important points to consider when writing recruitment proposals, tenders and presentations! I hope this…
Read MoreThe worst time to build your library of company information and update your policies to support recruitment tender writing is when you’re actually writing a tender! When you’re up against a tight deadline, wouldn’t it be nice to know you have current and compliant information to help you answer the questions and populate the appendices?…
Read MoreRule No 1: Choose just ONE tender notification service – otherwise you’re paying multiple times for the same service! Finding tenders isn’t hard….the public sector ones are all advertised on the internet and there are any number of tender notification services which cost anything from nothing to £1,000+ per annum. The first thing to be…
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