Community Engagement Services for the Groundwater Resilience and Community Engagement Programme (GRACE)

Buckinghamshire Council is seeking to appoint a provider, or providers, experienced in engaging with the community to deliver community engagement over 4.5 years for the Groundwater Resilience and Community Engagement Programme (GRACE).

Interested organisations should be experienced in engagement with local communities. This can be unrelated to flooding.

This project is funded by Defra as part of the £150 million Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme which is managed by the Environment Agency to develop and test new approaches to help communities become more resilient to the effects of flooding and climate change.

The aim of the GRACE Programme is, through innovative solutions and stakeholder engagement, to build resilience to groundwater flooding for communities, focusing particularly on 10 at risk geographical areas.

The provider(s) shall devise and carry out effective and true engagement with stakeholders and local communities to help collaborate on, and co-produce, innovative solutions to groundwater flood risk. They will work closely with the Engagement and communications workstream.

The contract term is 4.5 years (4 years and 6 months) with the option to extend for 1 year. The work shall be undertaken in 4 phases, with each phase dependent on the council first issuing formal written instructions at its discretion for the relevant work to be undertaken.

The service is divided into 10 geographical areas referred to as Lots. The potential provider(s) can bid for any number of Lots. The 10th area has not yet been agreed and therefore only 9 Lots will be covered by this tender process.

The lots are defined by the pilot communities that the GRACE Programme is focussing upon, namely:

• Lot 1 Bramingham, Bedfordshire
• Lot 2 Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire
• Lot 3 Chesham, Buckinghamshire
• Lot 4 Colnbrook Poyle, Slough
• Lot 5 Kimpton, Hertfordshire
• Lot 6 Lambourn, West Berkshire
• Lot 7 Marlow, Buckinghamshire
• Lot 8 New Hinksey, Oxfordshire
• Lot 9 Pang Valley, Berkshire

A budget of approximately £15,000 per area has been allocated for Phase 1. Budget will be allocated for each subsequent phase based on outcome, performance and future plan. The estimated maximum contract value per area is £75,000. The total contract value for the 4.5 year period including any extension for the 10 pilot areas is estimated to be £750,000.