Planning

Contract for services to evaluate the Office for Students regulation of quality

  • Office for Students

UK2: Preliminary market engagement notice - Procurement Act 2023 - view information about notice types

Notice identifier: 2025/S 000-031938

Procurement identifier (OCID): ocds-h6vhtk-0547b6

Published 12 June 2025, 2:05pm



Scope

Description

We are seeking a supplier with expertise in complex impact evaluation and an in-depth understanding of leading high quality academic provision to undertake an evaluation of the Office for Students (OfS) approach to regulating and driving up quality in English higher education providers. The initial work order will involve undertaking including 10 case studies and a sector-wide survey exploring how OfS activity influences providers' attitudes and behaviours to providing high quality higher education experiences within a complex system. Future work orders will likely include further case studies and survey responses to explore any changes in providers' approaches to quality, with the possibility of other primary data collection.

For more information about this opportunity, please visit the Delta eSourcing portal at:

https://www.delta-esourcing.com/tenders/UK-UK-Bristol:-Evaluation-consultancy-services./5R37H5KMH2

To respond to this opportunity, please click here:

https://www.delta-esourcing.com/respond/5R37H5KMH2

Total value (estimated)

  • £600,000 including VAT

Above the relevant threshold

Contract dates (estimated)

  • 10 September 2025 to 10 September 2031
  • Possible extension to 10 September 2033
  • 8 years, 1 day

Main procurement category

Services

CPV classifications

  • 79419000 - Evaluation consultancy services

Engagement

Engagement deadline

25 June 2025

Engagement process description

The OfS will be holding a briefing event. The briefing event will be held online (Microsoft Teams) from 11:00-12:00 on Tuesday 24 June 2025.

We recognise that the higher education sector is a highly diverse and nuanced space, which means that a successful evaluation is only possible with a combination of methodological and experiential expertise to uncover findings that enable us to see a nuanced picture of how well our quality regulation activities are working to increase high quality for students.

Through this event, we will bring together those with significant expertise in both areas, and hope that this facilitates suppliers in developing proposals of the highest quality. The event will introduce the specification and answer questions.

Following the event, we will distribute contact details with everyone who has shared details, to enable the formation of partnerships/collaborations for a proposal.

Suppliers will need to register to attend the event. Please follow this link to register : https://survey.officeforstudents.org.uk/s/OfS-briefing-event-quality-evaluation/


Submission

Publication date of tender notice (estimated)

28 June 2025


Contracting authority

Office for Students

  • Public Procurement Organisation Number: PYZM-6681-RPZP

Westward House, Lime Kiln Close, Stoke Gifford

Bristol

BS34 8SR

United Kingdom

Contact name: Sarah Phillips

Telephone: +44 1179317317

Email: procurement@officeforstudents.org.uk

Region: UKK12 - Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire

Organisation type: Public authority - sub-central government