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Adult Skills Fund 2024-25 Procurement FAQs

Read our most frequently asked questions around Adult Skills Fund (formerly known as Adult Education Budget) Procurement.

2024-25 Procurement FAQs

Why was the Adult Skills Fund 24-25 procurement terminated?

When will the procurement take place instead?

Will anything change?

Dynamic Purchase System: General FAQ

Am I eligible to tender?

How do I apply to join the Adult Skills DPS?

What are the Contractor Model restrictions for the DPS?

What are the Contractor Model restrictions for this and other opportunities?

We have reviewed the operation of the system and are moving some restrictions that applied previously when joining the DPS, to the Invitation to Tender stage. This means that in future, all organisations irrespective of their affiliations with other companies may, should they be successful in meeting the selection criteria, be appointed to the Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS).

However, when issuing a Tender opportunity (Call Off) under the DPS we may be placing a restriction on the organisations entitled to bid. In future, we will only accept one

Tender submission per Lot from:

a Group of Companies (this means any direct or indirect subsidiary or any direct
or indirect holding company or any such subsidiary of any such holding company
or any such holding company of such subsidiary; “subsidiary” and “holding
company” having the meanings defined in Section 736 of the Companies Act
1985 as amended by the Companies Act 1989). We would expect one bid
irrespective of the number of connected legal entities within that “Group
Company”. If we receive more than one bid, we may disqualify all bids from the
tender process or alternatively communicate with the relevant organisations and
ask them to liaise with each other and remove any excess bids from the tender
opportunity. Where agreement cannot be reached, the Combined Authority
reserves the right to disqualify all organisations without any liability or
responsibility whatsoever for taking this action;
any arrangement in which suppliers are working together; this may include but
not be limited to Joint Ventures, Consortia bids or bids where the principal
contractor is relying on the capacities of other entities to be able to meet the
tender criteria, or where members of the same arrangement are also contractors
in another Joint Venture/Consortia/arrangement that have bid for the same
opportunity;
organisations that submit similar or identical bids that are not entirely and wholly
separate and independent of each other. If organisations use the same bid writer
then it may be beneficial to ensure that an ethical wall is in place and, instead, a
different bid writer is used per each organisation.
It should be noted that the Combined Authority does not object to Principal Contractor
and sub-contracting arrangements or Consortia/Joint Venture proposals

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