WMCA Technical Education, Skills and Employment Support Flexible Procurement System

Description

Our ambition is to develop a more integrated Employment and Skills and Employment Support ecosystem for the region through which we can stimulate economic growth, deliver better outcomes for residents and businesses and create healthier, thriving communities. For Adult Skills and Employment Support, we will have a single coherent funding structure where the Adult Education Budget, Free Courses for Jobs and Bootcamps funding streams will form the basis initially. We hope and will endeavour to expand this to encompass an integrated Employment and Skills and Employment Support funding stream. Having a better integrated Employment and Skills and Employment Support ecosystem will also make it easier to align this investment with other services, such as business support and health etc., further improving outcomes in local areas. Our key aims for Skills and Employment Support are: Enhancing Flexibility and Responsiveness: Allow for continuous market engagement, enabling the inclusion of new providers as market needs and employment landscapes evolve. Ensuring High-Quality Provision: Implement robust assessment and evaluation criteria to ensure that only high-performing providers that have the capacity and capability to deliver quality outcomes are included. Promoting Competition and Innovation: Create an open and competitive environment that encourages membership from a diverse range of providers, fostering innovation and best practices. Maintain a dynamic pool of providers that can offer innovative solutions and respond quickly to new challenges and opportunities in the employment and skills sector. Enhancing Efficiency and Cost-Effectiveness: Simplify and speed up the procurement process, reducing administrative burden and allowing for faster implementation of services. Ensure that the system delivers cost-effective solutions without compromising on the quality of provision, maximising the return on investment for public funds. Fostering Partnerships and Collaboration: Encourage collaboration between providers, employers and other stakeholders to create a cohesive and integrated approach to skills development and employment support. Promote the sharing of best practices and successful strategies among providers to enhance overall service quality and outcomes. Meeting Place-Based Local and Regional Strategies: Ensure that the FPS aligns with the specific employment and skills strategies and priorities of the West Midlands, addressing local labour market needs and supporting local place-based and regional economic growth. Enable targeted interventions to support disadvantaged groups, tackle unemployment and address skills shortages in key sectors. Lot 1: This Flexible Procurement System (FPS) will follow-on from the WMCA Adult Skills Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS), awarded in November 2022, to offer an expedient route to market and direct access to the provider base for WMCA’s Skills and Employment Support requirements. The refresh of this route to market has been made in order to align with WMCA’s Employment and Skills Strategy and to streamline the bidding process for employment and skills providers. Through engagement with key stakeholders, WMCA identified where improvements could be made to the Adult Skills DPS for the benefit of WMCA, our providers and our residents. Although this FPS is being established in order to facilitate immediate and easy access to the Adult Skills and Employment Support Market, WMCA will not be mandated to use it for every requirement. WMCA have opted to establish an FPS under the Light Touch Regime rules, within the Public Contracts Regulations (PCR, 2015) to deliver our Technical Education, Skills and Employment Support services provision. An FPS is an overarching agreement that allows FPS Providers who are admitted onto it to subsequently compete for Call-off Contracts through further competitions. It operates in a similar way to a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) but will have set windows for evaluation of Applications to join. This will allow WMCA to continually expand our network of providers and welcome new FPS Providers that are able to meet our requirements for the duration of the FPS. The FPS will include five categories of delivery, linked to pillars within the Employment and Skills Strategy. In order to be included on 4 of the categories, Applicants will be required to demonstrate their understanding and capability of delivering in those category areas. The categories will include; - Building strong and inclusive communities - Providing a good education up to level 2 - Moving residents into employment and supporting career progression - Meeting future skills needs at level 3 and above through upskilling and reskilling - Innovation Additional information: The purpose of this Prior Information Notice (PIN) is to alert the market to an upcoming opportunity in relation to delivery of Technical Education, Skills and Employment Support Provision. Please note, the information contained in this notice represents WMCA’s current approach and may be subject to change prior to publication of the opportunity notice.