ESPO Strategic HR and Recruitment Services Framework Summary
Critical Timescales
At this stage of the bid you need to pay particular attention to the deadlines for asking clarification questions and submission:
- Publication of tender notice – 13th October 2025.
- Deadline for submission of clarification questions – 5pm, 24th October 2025.
- Deadline for submission of the bid – 12pm, 24th November 2025.
- Framework award decision – 11th May 2026.
- Contract Start – 7th July 2026.
General Information about the Framework
This framework covers national supply to UK public sector bodies that fall within the following classifications of user throughout all administrative regions of the UK:
- Central government agencies and ministries
- NHS and emergency (blue light) services
- Schools, academies, colleges and universities
- Registered charities
- Registered social landlords
The functions include Permanent and Interim recruitment, at all experience levels from Entry Level to Executive, candidate assessment and testing services, outplacement and career transition services, and a suite of HR services which will provide customers with flexible access to a toolkit of HR business processes.
Lots
The lotting structure is as follows:
Lot 1 – Executive and Managerial Interim Recruitment
- Lot 1a – Admin, HR & Business Support
- Lot 1b – Blue Light & Emergency Services
- Lot 1c – Commercial (Finance, Procurement & Legal)
- Lot 1d – Education
- Lot 1e – Health & Social Care
- Lot 1f – IT, Digital, Media & Marketing
Lot 2 – Executive and Managerial Permanent Recruitment
- Lot 2a – Admin, HR & Business Support
- Lot 2b – Blue Light & Emergency Services
- Lot 2c – Commercial (Finance, Procurement & Legal)
- Lot 2d – Education
- Lot 2e – Health & Social Care
- Lot 2f – IT, Digital, Media & Marketing
Lot 3 – Temporary Recruitment (sub £45k)
Lot 4 – Permanent Recruitment (sub £45k)
Lot 5 – Assessment & Testing Services
Lot 6 – Outplacement & Career Transition Services
Lot 7 – HR Business Process Outsourcing
- Lot 7a – Recruitment Process Outsourcing
- Lot 7b – Applicant Management
- Lot 7c – Onboarding
- Lot 7d – HR Administration
- Lot 7e – Payroll Management
- Lot 7f – Employment Screening and Background Checks
- Lot 7g – HR Consultancy
- Lot 7h – Statement of Works
Lot 8 – Future Workforce
- Lot 8a – Workforce Planning and Demand Management
- Lot 8b – Recruit, Train, Deploy (RTD)
- Lot 8c – Professional and Career Coaching Services
- Lot 8d – Professional and Career Skills Development
Geographical Coverage
The framework covers the government’s nine defined regions (East Midlands, East of England, London, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midlands and Yorkshire & Humber) and you must be able to supply ALL nine defined regions in England as well as throughout Wales. Bidders may also indicate the extent to which they can offer services elsewhere in the UK as it may be available for use by public sector establishments in Scotland.
Other Framework Information
The contract will run for an initial period of 2 years with the option to extend for a further period (or periods) of 2 years taking the contract term up to a maximum of 4 years.
It is anticipated that between 75 and 120 suppliers will be awarded a place on the framework with between 5 and 60 per lot/sub lot, however these numbers are not fixed and the final composition of suppliers will be decided by ESPO.
There is a management fee of 1% of your total turnover which will be payable to ESPO on a quarterly basis for all business conducted under the framework for lots 1-6 and 7a-g. The rate for Lot 7h is 0.5% of the value of business conducted under the framework.
Registration & Accessing the Documents
The full contract notice can be viewed on the following link: https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/064847-2025?origin=SearchResults&p=1
To access the documents, you must first register on the following link: https://procontract.due-north.com/Advert?advertId=2d42534c-120e-f011-8136-005056b64545&p=527b4bbd-5c58-e511-80ef-000c29c9ba21
Clarification Questions
Questions, clarifications and queries must be asked BEFORE 5pm on 24th October 2025. Questions asked after this deadline will not be answered.
Questions must be asked through the portal as this is the only way that ESPO will communicate with bidders. Try to ensure your questions are specific and clear, and don’t include your company’s identity as the full question and corresponding answer will be published on the portal for all bidders to see.
Criteria
To qualify for this framework, the tender specifies that you must meet ALL of the following mandatory requirements:
Meet financial risk criteria as follows:
- Companies or organisations that have been trading for 2 years or more should have ‘positive net assets’ as determined from their latest year’s published financial accounts and have been profitable overall for the last 2 consecutive years as determined from their published financial accounts.
- Companies or organisations that have been trading for less than 2 years should have ‘positive net assets’ and provide both (a) copies of their published financial accounts (minimum 1 set), showing that from inception they have been profitable overall, and (b) a cash flow forecast showing there is sufficient funding within the company to continue as a going concern for at least 12 months.
- Partnerships or sole traders should provide their Partnership accounts or Sole Trader accounts in the same way that Companies are required to provide their published financial accounts otherwise the above provisions will also apply in the same way. Public sector and Third Sector organisations will be assessed on net assets only
- For the purposes of the conditions described above, Tenderers will be required to meet the following:
- For net assets: – Total Net Assets or Shareholder’s Funds lifted straight from the latest year’s balance sheet should be positive.
- For profitability: – From the last 2 years accounts, the net profit should cumulatively be positive overall.
- It is important that the financial information provided relates specifically to the company registration number of the Tenderer completing the ITT.
- ESPO will also use a Credit Reference Agency to provide information on tenderers.
- If a Tenderer fails to pass the financial assessment and is part of a larger group, provided that the group accounts are provided to ESPO on request and these pass the financial tests, a parent company guarantee may be acceptable provided such security is granted on or before the award of the framework agreement. If ESPO has cause for concern in relation to the financial information or financial stability of the Tenderer this will give rise to the Tender being rejected.
As far as possible, tenderers must have experience of providing the service demonstrated by ongoing and historical contract examples. For Lots 1, 2 and 7, bidders must provide a minimum of 1 contract example and a maximum of 3 per lot/sub-lot including relevant contact information, contract start/end dates, values, context and information to demonstrate it is of a similar scope, scale and service to the lot. For Lot 8 bidders must provide evidence for each individual sub-lot they are bidding for. ESPO will not accept one contract that demonstrates coverage of multiple requirements across the sub-lots.
Have the following insurances in place prior to the contract start date:
- Employers Liability – £5m.
- Public Liability – £10m.
- Professional Indemnity – £2m.
Provide details of your action plan to tackle modern slavery.
Have adequate data protection procedures, health and safety procedures/risk controls and quality assurance processes in place, and provide evidence that their processes are clear, practicable and accessible.
Have a documented approach to managing business continuity.
Have a published carbon reduction policy statement or plan that demonstrates how business operations cause minimal environmental impact and documents their CO2 reduction goals, plan and progress to date.
Have Cyber Essentials accreditation or demonstrate that equivalent controls are in place through other means (by the framework award date).
Documents to be Completed
You must complete the following:
- Information on the Central Digital Platform
- Procurement specific questionnaire including additional qualitative questions to be completed on the portal in alignment with specified word limits (complete online).
- Questions 3.1 (financial information), 3.3 (parent company guarantee if applicable) and 4.1 (contracts/references) require tables to be completed and uploaded at question level.
- Tender Submission Document (complete offline and upload) which includes:
- Response to Requirement and Specification (complete offline and upload)
- Method Statements (two generic for all lots) and:
- One lot specific question for Lots 1-4.
- One additional lot specific question for each of Lots 5-7.
- Up to four additional lot specific questions in alignment with sub-lots being tendered for Lot 8.
- Social value question and commitments for all lots.
- Pricing discounts.
- Additional Benefits for Customers.
- Confidential Information Schedule.
- Tendering declaration.
- Submission checklist.
- Appendix C – Pricing schedule(s) lot specific (complete offline and upload).
Evaluation/Weightings
You must achieve a score of 50% or higher for your combined Price and Non-Price score within the Lot(s)/Sub-Lot(s) you are Tendering for, to be awarded to the Framework. If you score 49.99% or lower for your combined Price and Non-Price score for any lot, you will not be awarded a position on the Framework.
The weightings for each lot are:
- Price – 40%.
- Non-Price – 60% (covering generic method statements, lot specific method statements and social value method statements).
BRUNTON BID WRITING SERVICES & PRICING
We are offering two service options for this tender:
1. TO OUTSOURCE THE FULL BID where we complete all the questions on your behalf and upload all the required documentation to the portal ready for your review and submission.
- FOR LOTS 1-4 – £8,950 + vat
- FOR LOTS 5-8 – Pricing provided on confirmation of the lots you wish to bid for.
2. THE CONSULTANCY AND REVIEW SERVICE which includes:
- A full review of all the documentation relating to the bid (so we know the documents inside out and will be well positioned to give advice).
- Ongoing review of the “clarification” questions and answers as they are published.
- An initial consultation call to discuss what needs to be done (in particular, the approach required for each of the qualitative questions and case study).
- Unlimited telephone and email support throughout the bid period (until the submission deadline).
- Maximum of two reviews of your draft responses to the qualitative questions and case study (using track changes and comments in Microsoft Word format) to maximise available scores.
- A review of all documents to be uploaded to the portal to ensure they have been completed fully and correctly.
- A full review of the portal (once you have uploaded your bid) to ensure it is complete and compliant and that all attachments have been uploaded correctly.
- FOR LOTS 1-4 – £4,950 + vat
- FOR LOTS 5-8 – Pricing provided on confirmation of the lots you wish to bid for.