WiredGov Newswire (news from other organisations)
 Printable version
|
Legal Aid Agency - Civil news: further chance to bid for 2018 contract work
New tender opportunity for 2018 face to face contract work will open shortly.
A new process is to open giving organisations meeting our minimum requirements a further opportunity to tender for 2018 civil contract face to face work.
What is happening?
We want to give organisations another chance to bid for work under the 2018 civil contract. We are thinking particularly about those organisations which either:
- did not submit a tender, or
- failed to submit compliant tenders for specific categories of law or procurement areas
Which categories of law will be open to bids?
Tenders will be invited in the following categories of law:
- family
- housing, debt and welfare benefits
- immigration and asylum
- mental health
- community care
- claims against public authorities (formerly known as ‘actions against the police etc’)
- clinical negligence
- public Law
- family mediation
Minimum contract requirements
Any organisations able to meet the minimum contract requirements will be able to tender to deliver advertised contract work under a 2018 Standard Civil Contract.
This includes organisations that have already tendered for a 2018 Standard Civil contract and wish to deliver additional services. Also, organisations which have not previously tendered.
What are the timescales?
We expect these tenders for further face to face contract work to open by the end of June.
What about immigration removal centres?
Work at Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) is allocated on a rota basis and we have already received bids significantly in excess of the number of slots available.
So, the LAA will not be tendering for access to these services as part of the further procurement process.
Why do this now?
Our existing tender processes mean that we have already secured services in most procurement areas.
These include our main face to face procurement process and the supplemental tender activity that followed in specific categories of law and procurement areas.
However, we have also identified a number of organisations which wish to deliver civil legal aid but failed to submit compliant tenders in the category of law or procurement area in which they wish to deliver work.
The purpose of the procurement process was to allow organisations which want to deliver publicly funded civil work and meet the LAA’s minimum requirements to do so.
As a result, we are giving organisations this further opportunity to tender.
What about the existing procurement process?
We are well-advanced with verification activities to complete the 2018 face to face procurement process.
Following our recent reminders to applicants we have also seen an increase in organisations verifying their bids.
April 2018 supplemental tender
In addition to the main face to face procurement process, the supplemental tender opportunity opened in April 2018 to attract additional services in a small number of areas.
The categories of law included immigration and asylum, family and housing and debt.
Organisations which tendered for a standard civil contract in the supplemental procurement process can expect to receive notification of the outcome of their tender in the week beginning 18 June 2018.
Further information
