The 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 by Workforce Alliance staff Andy Rouse and Asif Khan.
GENERAL INFORMATION
The new Workforce Alliance Clinical & Healthcare Staffing Framework (RM6281) will replace the current framework RM6161.
Key Timescales
- Anticipated tender publication date – 13th February 2023
- Anticipated tender submission date – 30 calendar days from the date that the tender is published
- Anticipated contract award date – Autumn 2023 (anticipated November but this will be confirmed when the tender is published)
Registering on the Portal / Tender Notification
The tender will be published on the Atamis portal, and you can register in advance using the following link: https://health-family.force.com/ProSpend__eSourcing_Community_Registration?locale=uk.
When this tender is published, Brunton Bid Writing will also add the contract notice to our website. We will review the tender documents once they are published and write a blog article providing an overview of the key requirements/criteria.
You can receive a notification when we upload both of these by subscribing here: https://www.bruntonbidwriting.co.uk/register-for-tender-notifications/.
Further details of this tender will be added to the CCS upcoming deals website in the Future Pipeline section in the next few days: https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/upcoming.
TENDER EVALUATION
Workforce Alliance is not specifying the number of bidders who will be successful for each lot. Instead they have stated that all bidders that meet “best quality requirements” will be allocated a place on the framework. “Best quality requirements” were defined as including both quality and price elements of the bid.
Whilst they are not stating that newly incorporated agencies will be unsuccessful, they will be specifying thresholds for previous supply for each lot, and you will need to be able to demonstrate that you meet these requirements for your bid to be considered.
The tender will be evaluated as follows:
1. Compliance, SQ and Thresholds – Workforce Alliance will check these elements of your bid to ensure you meet their criteria. The details of what is required will be specified in the documents when the bid is published, however it has been indicated that there will be a minimum number of previously billed hours required for you to qualify for each lot. These thresholds have not been confirmed as yet and will be published in the tender documents in due course. It is intended that the thresholds selected will provide a balance between ensuring suppliers have relevant experience and fairness towards new/SME agencies.
2. Commercial Finance – this is the stage where they will evaluate your economic and financial standing. The way that they will evaluate your economic and financial standing will depend on which lots you are bidding for. The Government has 3 levels of financial evaluation – gold, silver and bronze. Gold is the most robust financial evaluation used on contracts where the service is critical, and it will be most challenging to replace suppliers whose business fails due to financial difficulties. Silver is the second most robust evaluation and bronze is the level of evaluation used for less critical services where it will be easiest to replace failed suppliers. Workforce Alliance has classified the lots in the upcoming tender as follows:
- Lot 1 – Nursing – Silver
- Lot 2 – Medical – Silver
- Lot 3 – Allied Health Professionals – Bronze
- Lot 4 – Social Care – Bronze
- Lot 5 – Vendor Managed Solution – Silver
To evaluate your bid, Workforce Alliance may require you to complete their Financial Viability Risk Assessment tool (FVRA) depending on which lots you are bidding for, and your Dun & Bradstreet risk score. If you are required to complete the FVRA spreadsheet, you will be required to provide detailed information relating to your financial performance over the last 3 years including information held in your financial statements/accounts, P&L and balance sheet. You will be required to complete and upload the requisite spreadsheet as follows:
- For lots requiring bronze evaluation, the tender documents will specify the minimum Dun & Bradstreet failure score boundary required. If your business meets this failure score, you will not be required to complete the bronze FVRA. If your business does not meet the specified Dun & Bradstreet risk score, you will need to complete and upload the bronze FVRA spreadsheet as part of your bid.
- For lots requiring silver evaluation, you will be required to complete and upload the silver FVRA spreadsheet as part of your bid.
Please note that if you need to provide an FVRA you will need to complete this for the bidding entity and any parent or ultimate parent companies. These spreadsheets are complex, time-consuming to complete and will require input from your financial team or accountants.
If you are bidding for lots that require both bronze and silver evaluation, we have been advised on the webinar that you will only need to complete and upload the silver FVRA as this will cover you for both levels.
Workforce Alliance is not seeking to discriminate against businesses that have been in operation for less than 3 years, however they need to balance fairness with financial risk. If your business falls into this category, then you will be asked to provide at least 1 year’s financial statements and the Workforce Alliance finance team will work with you to assess the risk accordingly. Whilst they have not ruled out companies that have been in operation less than 1 year, it may be challenging to demonstrate your economic and financial standing if you do not have at least 1 year’s financial statements.
3. Evidence Gathering Exercise – no information was provided regarding what would be covered in this section of the evaluation other than this being the stage where you will be required to “demonstrate processes and provide evidence”. It is understood that evaluation will involve a desktop audit.
4. Social Value Lot 5 – Workforce Alliance will focus on 3 areas of social value for evaluation. These have been selected as being the most relevant to recruitment agencies.
- Tackling economic inequality (focusing on creating new businesses, new jobs and new skills). This means creating meaningful employment opportunities for people facing additional barriers (e.g. long-term unemployed, young people aged 16-24 who are NEET and rehabilitating ex-offenders). Proposed measures will include commitments to:
- NT3 – number of full time equivalent local employees hired or retained on the contract who are long-term unemployed (1 year or longer).
- NT4 – number of full time equivalent local employees hired on the contract who are NEET.
- NT5 – number of full time equivalent local employees aged 18+ years hired on contract who are rehabilitating ex–offenders.
- Equal opportunity (focusing on tackling workforce inequality). This means implementing specific initiatives or recruitment programmes for members of an ethnic minority group or creating leadership roles on the contract held by people from ethnic minorities. Proposed measures will include commitments to:
- NT79 – percentage of leadership positions (manager or above level 4) on the contract held by people from ethnic minority groups.
- RE72 – specific initiatives or recruitment programmes for members of an ethnic minority group for the contract.
- Wellbeing (focusing on improving health and wellbeing). This means implementing mental health campaigns to create a community of acceptance and remove stigma around mental health. Proposed measures will include commitments to:
- NT39 – mental health campaigns for staff or the contract to create a community of acceptance and remove stigma around mental health.
5. Commercial evaluation – Pricing.
FURTHER GUIDANCE
Workforce Alliance created a list of FAQs based on discussions which took place at the previous supplier engagement webinar run back in September 2022. You a copy of this by emailing lppworkforcesupport@lpp.nhs.uk. You can request a full recording of this webinar from the same email address.
CONTACT DETAILS
Fiona Brunton
fiona.brunton@bruntonconsultancy.co.uk
Tel: 01688 400319
