Procurement

Functional Assessment Clinical Assurance and Training Services (FACATS)

Department for Work and Pensions

Procurement identifier (OCID): ocds-h6vhtk-04fd5e

Description

The Authority intends to award a public contract under section 19 of the Procurement Act 2023 ("PA 2023"). This procurement for the award of that public contract is being conducted as an open procedure in accordance with sections 20(1) and 20(2)(a) of PA 2023 for the award of a light touch contract in accordance with section 9 of PA 2023.

Overview

DWP commissions the provision of circa 2 million Assessments per year, which are conducted on behalf of DWP by Healthcare Professionals (HPs) employed by suppliers that were awarded Functional Assessment Service (FAS) Contracts (FAS Providers). These Assessments are used to help determine eligibility to certain disability related benefits including Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Universal Credit (UC), Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and other Specialist Benefits.

The FAS Providers employ approximately 5,000 HPs to conduct Assessments on behalf of the DWP.

To conduct Assessments, HPs are required to have appropriate knowledge of the clinical aspects and the functional effects of a wide range of health conditions and disabilities as well as specific knowledge of how to conduct the Assessments and the related policy.

DWP owns a suite of benefit-related clinical Core Training and Guidance Materials (CTGM). The CTGM currently comprises a total of approximately 700 documents with a total of circa 30,000 pages. The CTGM is broken down into two categories, namely:

a) CTGM relating to carrying out Assessments which accounts for the vast majority of documents. In addition to providing the guidance to HPs and Authority Clinicians when conducting Assessments, FAS Providers are also required to use the CTGM to inform and develop training programmes and associated materials for their circa 5,000 HPs.

b) There are several CTGM documents for use by Authority Decision Makers. This category of CTGM includes guidance for Authority Decision Makers who determine eligibility for Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance for Children.

In addition, DWP engages approximately 200 Authority Clinicians who will also use the CTGM for reference.

DWP is committed to ensuring clinical CTGM is annually reviewed and of the highest quality, evidence based, in-line with best practice and free from bias.

The Authority currently anticipates awarding a contract for the services (as further described below) for an initial period of 36 months with an option (at the Authority's discretion and subject to governance approval, available funding and satisfactory performance) for the Authority to extend the contract for a further period of up to 12 months by giving the Supplier written notice of no less than 20 Working Days before the initial term of the Contract expires.

Contract subject-matter

The following Services form the overall scope of Services required by the Authority under this procurement:

a) Clinical QA Service - carrying out a review of the CTGM;

b) Annual Clinical Training Course Service - delivering an annual clinical training course;

c) Educational CPD Materials Service - developing educational CPD materials.

The above Services are required to be delivered in accordance with:

a) the relevant sections of the Specification, which is set out in Appendix B of the ITS;

b) the relevant Service Levels, as set out in Appendix C of the ITS; and

c) the terms and conditions of the Contract, for which a draft is set out in Appendix D of the ITS.

The Authority has considered whether the FACATS Services could reasonably be supplied under more than one contract by dividing the procurement into lots. The Authority has concluded that splitting the procurement into lots could make the requirement disproportionately expensive to manage and increase the technical risk to deliver the requirement. The Services will be supplied under one contract.

Weightings for the Technical Qualitative Questions:

The weightings for Technical Qualitative Questions apply to the overall question and the Supplier should ensure any areas highlighted by the bullet points are covered within the overall response. No individual bullet point has a separate weighting and, subsequently, does not have a greater or lesser impact on the overall question, which will be assessed as a whole. Information will be evaluated against the pre-determined criteria as stated in the ITS.

Suppliers' Tender Responses will be scored in accordance with the scoring criteria set out below.

The score awarded for each question (in accordance with the scoring methodology detailed in paragraph 168 of the ITS) will be converted to a percentage score (in accordance with the question's respective weighting shown in the table in paragraph 173 of the ITS) to give a total score using the following formula:

Percentage score % = (Score awarded / Maximum score) x Percentage weighting

Example:

If a Supplier is awarded a score of 7 (Good) for Question 1, the percentage score awarded for that question will be:

Percentage score % = (7/10) x 22.5% = 15.75%

The maximum score available in respect of the Technical Qualitative Questions is 70%. The different weightings reflect the relative importance of each question to the Authority.

Example CTGM documents:

The Authority will provide copies of example CTGM documents (as listed in Appendix N to the ITS), to aid Suppliers in understanding the variation in content and size of individual CTGM documents.

Due to CTGM documents being classified as Official and containing some information that is confidential, it is a requirement of the Authority that a Supplier completes and signs the Non-Disclosure Agreement (set out in Appendix O to the ITS) as a prerequisite of receiving the example CTGM documents listed in Appendix N.

Notices

UK4: Tender notice

Notice identifier: 2025/S 000-033510
Published: 18 June 2025, 11:38pm

UK2: Preliminary market engagement notice

Notice identifier: 2025/S 000-013106
Published: 4 April 2025, 1:55pm

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