Civil news: opportunity to tender for education advice contracts
News story
A revised tender opportunity for Civil Legal Advice (CLA) specialist telephone advice services in the education category is now inviting bids.
A tender opened on 4 February 2021 for specialist telephone advice contracts in the education category of law.
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is seeking to award up to 5 contracts with work being offered in ‘lots’ of 20% of the total work. Applicants may tender to deliver one, two or a maximum of 3 lots.
We want to encourage tenders from organisations that have the skills and resources in place to deliver Civil Legal Advice (CLA) contracts at short notice and have made a number of changes to encourage sustainable tenders.
Changes include amending the service operational hours and increasing the maximum hourly rate at which applicants may tender to deliver the work.
The LAA recognises that there may be some organisations interested in delivering some telephone advice but may be unable to either meet the minimum quality standards or be able to deliver 20% of the contract value.
We will therefore also accept variant bids from applicants wishing to deliver a lower proportion of work. This includes where a bidder is unable to meet the minimum contract requirements in full.
Variant bids will only be considered if we are unable to award 100% of the contract work to organisations bidding for lots.
Timescales
The deadline for submitting tenders is 5pm on 25 February 2021.
Services under the new contracts will begin on 1 April 2021.
Where can I find out more?
Detailed information on the procurement opportunity is available in the ‘Information for Applicants’ document on our tender pages.
Further information
Specialist Telephone Advice in Education and Discrimination from April 2021
Published 5 February 2021