Short Breaks Foster Care Overnight Service for Children and Young People with a Disability – Tender September 2025

Telford & Wrekin Council and Shropshire Council wish to commission a Provider to deliver planned overnight short breaks to resident children and young people aged 5-17, with disabilities. 

There is insufficient, local overnight Short Breaks across both Shropshire Local Authority area and the borough of Telford and Wrekin.  Therefore, both Councils are seeking to jointly commission a Foster Care Short Breaks service.  This aligns to both Council’s ambition to offer regulated, local and high-quality overnight breaks, within a homely environment.
Telford & Wrekin Council are the tender process lead.  The successful provider will be awarded a contract from both LAs.  There will be an ongoing partnership between the provider and the two Councils regarding service delivery and monitoring of impact and outcomes.  The tender is scheduled to be published September 2025.
The Short Breaks Regulations set a requirement for Local Authorities to provide a range of respite opportunities available to children and young people with disabilities. The Short Breaks offer aims to support the needs and aspirations of children and young people with disabilities, as well as support parent, carer and family wellbeing.

Planned overnight breaks are an essential source of Short Breaks support for families that are eligible, providing a much-needed break for both parent carers, the child/young person and supports family wellbeing.  We want to ensure that overnight breaks are a positive experience for the CYP, helping to support their social and emotional development as well as providing them with leisure and opportunity to learn new skills.

The Council is seeking a provider that can satisfy the service delivery requirements, Ofsted requirements, and the workforce requirements to deliver a quality and sustainable overnight short breaks provision.  It is understood that the successful provider will require time for recruitment and training in the lead up to service delivery, and this will be underpinned via a partnership approach over a long contract period. 

Do you provide Health Care to NHS or Public Health Services to the Council?

Download the document for more information on the changes in the Procurement Legislation (.pdf Size: 137Kb) .

Procuring for the borough 

Telford & Wrekin Council are looking for local providers, suppliers, and contractors to procure goods and services for the borough. 

Please check out this video to see if you could be 'in it, to win it'.

 

The Council is seeking bids for COCV 069 - Independent Advocacy Service for looked after children and children on child protection plans and an Independent Visitor Service

Visit the Shropshire website for more information about the current tender alert. 

Children's and Families Support Services (CAFSS)

Telford & Wrekin Council have been leading on the development of a new tender for non-accommodation support services for children and families across the West Midlands region. The new framework will be open to a wide range of services who can contribute to keeping families safely together, supporting children to step out of care, step down to fostering, independence, and post adoption support. 

This opportunity is now open and available by visiting the GOV.UK website.

Download the slides from the Provider launch event held 13 January 2022 (.pdf Size: 1423Kb) .

Download the questions and answers from the Provider launch event held 13 January 2022 (.pdf Size: 179Kb) .

View the CAFSS Provider launch event (Thursday 13 January 2022) video:

 

 

View our YouTube video for a quick overview of CAFSS:

 

 

Dynamic Purchasing Systems

The Business Innovation Telford (BiT) team operate 4 Dynamic Purchasing Systems:

  • minor works
  • major works
  • professional consultancy
  • and Minor Works Disabled Facilities Grants.

For more information visit the biT Group website.

New tender opportunity

West Midlands Regional Fostering Framework Agreement

Tender opportunity opened 29 April 2024 led by Coventry City Council.

All details can be found at West Midlands Independent Fostering Agency Framework - Visit the find a tender website.

Notice reference: 2024/S 000-013694
Scope of Procurement: Social Work and Related Services

  • Lot No. 1  Standard Foster Care
  • Lot No. 2  Enhanced Foster Care
  • Lot No. 3  Specialist Foster Care
  • Lot No. 4  Parent and Child Foster Care

All information requests and bids should be via CSW-Jets at Coventry City Council.

Tender closes: 31 May 2024 at 12pm.

 

Last updated : 25 June 2025

Suppliers Guide to Transforming Public Procurement 2024

In March 2024 the Procurement Regulations were laid in Parliament to replace the Public Contract Regulations 2015 following the exit of the EU. The new public procurement legislation will ‘go live’ on 24 February 2025. Whilst we’re in this transitional period the Council will follow the PCR 2015. All projects after the go live date will follow the new legislation, so here’s some guidance to assist.

Overview

The Government aims to improve the way public procurement is regulated to promote a simpler more flexible, transparent and compliant route to contract that is open to all suppliers. A short guide on the changes can we viewed online.

The transition period between April 2024 and the go live date, the public sector and suppliers will be assisted by the Government through knowledge drops, animations, webinars and online guidance.

What are the Key Changes?

The Procurement Act objectives are to deliver value for money, maximise public benefit, share information and act with integrity. To deliver this the key changes are;

  • Transparency has been enhanced throughout the commercial lifecycle of the contract, from pre-procurement pipelines, procurement notices, through the contract amendments to payments.
  • Procurement Procedures have been streamlined to three processes, the open procedure, the competitive flexible procedure and direct award, making it easier to bid and communicate with the Public Sector.
  • Frameworks, open frameworks and Dynamic Markets will support approved suppliers for goods, services and works with more flexible processes and timescales.
  • Enhance Contract Finder for contract notices, contract management notices and payment notices for all values.
  • A Central Digital Platform for a one stop shop for suppliers to add their basic company information, reducing the need to submit it for every bid.
  • Most Advantageous Tender Award criteria emphasizing optimum price and quality ratio.
  • KPI’s will be included on contracts above £2m.
  • Conflicts of interest assessments to be introduced to all procurements.
  • Enhanced duties of the Public Review Service.
  • Procurement Review Service will have enhanced duties to take action when Suppliers under perform.

Benefits to Prospective Suppliers

The Government document sets out how the new regime will deliver benefits to suppliers. The new regime will remove historical barriers and make it easier for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Voluntary, Community, and social Enterprises (VCSEs) to bid for public sector opportunities. 

As a contracting authority we will have regard to;

  • Being proportionate with the requirements
  • Realistic timescales to bid
  • Transparency of notices to reach a wide range of suppliers to ensure a diverse representation of businesses for the opportunity
  • The Council will try to be as inclusive as it can to all categories of suppliers during the procurement process.
  • Strengthened the prompt payments with suppliers and their supply chain to 30 days.

To read the full benefits the Procurement Act lends itself to prospective Suppliers.

What to do to prepare

The Government have launched the official learning and development Knowledge Drops and animations to introduce the Act and support Suppliers. These are a high level overview of the changes to the procurement regulations and are aimed to supplier including SME’s and VCSE’s.

We encourage you to receive regular Government updates when new guidance is released.

There are also factsheets (.pdf Size: 705Kb) which outline the key benefits, the new Procurement Act and the next steps.

Keep up to date with what we buy with the Council’s Contracts Register (.pdf Size: 1250Kb) . 

Get yourself registered on the Find a Tender Service. This is where all UK tender notices are published. 

The Governments next phase (Launch date to be confirmed) of the Procurement Act is to deliver a Central Digital Platform (CPD). This will be a new supplier information system where suppliers can register and submit the basic company information. The CPD will be a single place where Supplier information can be accessed by Public Sector organisations to support bids. This will reduce the burden of Suppliers completing the same basic company information in every bid.

 

News and information

Keep yourselves up to date with the Governments news feed on the Transforming Public Procurement. 

Central Digital Platform 

The Procurement Act has also introduced the Central Digital Platform (CDP). The CDP is the new platform to facilitate publication of notices and store Supplier data making it easier for Suppliers to see Public Sector opportunities and reduce the burden of supplying the same information in multiple bids. 

Suppliers will need to register to the CDP to bid for opportunities after 24 February. TTP have put together guidance for the CDP on how to register, how to add your company information and how to use the system.  Please read through the guidance and this will answer a lot of your questions as well as who the information will be visible too. You’ll need to update your information in the CDP when natural changes happen to ensure the Public Sector evaluates your bids accurately. The easy read TPP guides are attached below but they are also available online:

On a DPS?

If you’re an approved Supplier on a DPS nothing will change until the natural end date of the DPS. However, all DPS’s must automatically come to an end by 23 February 2029. The Council will be transitioning all the current DPS’s to a new Dynamic Markets in line with the new Procurement Act. Further details will be posted through the individual DPS.

Download the Procurement Act 2023 – a short guide for suppliers (.pdf Size: 360Kb) .

Download the supplementary information: Small and Medium-sized Enterprises definition (.pdf Size: 629Kb) .

Last updated : 9 April 2025