A New Secure Children's Home for London

*UPDATE*: 17th September 2025

Dear Provider,

Thank you for your interest in our proposals to deliver a new and much-needed secure children's home for London. Also, thanks to those that have responded to our previous (two) preliminary market engagement notices and questionnaire regarding the management and operation of the proposed new service.

We are pleased to invite you to one of our upcoming online preliminary market engagement events in preparation for this potential procurement opportunity.

Event Purpose

The session will include further information about the project, insights from professionals with experience of leading secure children's home provision and an overview of our architectural design proposals. There will also be an opportunity for Q & A.

Event Details and Registration

You are invited to attend on one of the following dates (you do not need to attend both sessions).

• Wednesday 8th October 2025, 14:30 - 16:30

Or

• Friday 10th October 2025, 13:30-15:30

The events will take place online via Microsoft Teams. Once you have registered, you will promptly receive an invitation with a link to join the session.

Please book your place here. www.tickettailor.com/events/londonimprove… ↗

The deadline to register is 5pm Monday 6 October 2025.

We look forward to meeting you at one of these sessions and we would welcome the opportunity to engage in 1:1 discussions with you following these initial events.

Should you need any assistance or have any questions please get in touch.

Best regards,

London secure children's home programme team

London Innovation and Improvement Alliance

London Councils

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.liia.london/londons-secure-child… ↗

Note about the dates published in this notice:

The dates published in this notice are best estimates. The timeline for any future procurement process is dependent on the outcome of this preliminary market engagement exercise, the outcome of the planning permission process and conclusion of relevant local authority governance processes.

For further information / broader project updates:

Website: www.liia.london/londons-secure-child… ↗

Email: [email protected]

London Councils is the collective of London local government, the 32 boroughs and the City of London Corporation (together, the 'London local authorities'). These organisations come together through London Councils to work in collaboration to deliver their shared ambitions for London and Londoners.

London Councils is working with London local authorities to design and deliver a much-needed secure children's home with step-down / transition accommodation in London ('Pan London SCH'). There is no service of this kind in the capital.

The proposed provision will provide residential care, education, health and wellbeing services within a safe and secure environment for highly vulnerable children with complex needs. It will also provide a home for children who no longer need to live within a secure environment but will need a period of extra care and support to help them achieve a positive transition back into the community.

The outline service model

London local authorities will oversee and share the responsibilities of the Pan London SCH via a not-for-profit company that will be wholly owned by London local authorities, currently known as the Pan London Vehicle for Children's Complex Commissioning Ltd ('PLVCCC Ltd').

The aim is for PLVCCC Ltd to commission a delivery partner (provider or group of providers) to run the provision on its behalf and in partnership with an NHS health provider.

The plan is to appoint the delivery partner well in advance of the completion of construction works so that they can play a lead role in service development, set up and implementation activities. The intention is for the provision to scale up in phases until it reaches the optimum / most economic occupancy level, taking into account likely demand at the time.

The main source of ongoing revenue for the Pan London SCH will come from placements made by individual local authorities and additional funding would support the setup, implementation and scale up period.

Please be aware that a location for the proposed SCH has been identified, however construction of the new provision has not yet commenced - the project is currently in the pre planning application stage.

Read about the Pan London SCH project here: www.liia.london/wp-content/uploads/2… ↗

Engagement process

Prior to the commencement of a potential procurement, we wish to engage with organisations who would be interested in delivering services for the Pan London SCH, and/or have experience of delivering similar services.

The aim of the engagement process is to:

• Inform the market of this potential procurement opportunity.
• Gain an understanding of the market's capacity and appetite to participate in a potential procurement process.
• Help us understand risks and issues not previously considered and gain insight into potential solutions.
• Work collaboratively with providers to understand how services for the Pan London SCH could be best commissioned and provided.
• Inform the consideration of options for the future service model.
• Inform the next stage business case and procurement strategy.
• Develop an approach to commissioning services for the Pan London SCH that reflects the views of providers.

Preliminary market engagement questionnaire

Your views are important to us, and important to our next steps.

As part of the engagement process, London Councils has developed this questionnaire - the insights gathered will help shape the commissioning and procurement requirements, vision and approach ahead of more formal market engagement activities in the near future.

This questionnaire is not a call for competition and any future procurement process will be compliant with the Procurement Act 2023.

Information submitted will be treated in confidence, will not be individually identified or revealed to third parties and will not prejudice any provider from participating in a future procurement.

Any information marked as commercially sensitive will be treated as such. Please identify any information which should not be disclosed because of its sensitivity, providing reasons and the period for which the information will remain sensitive.

Please note, issuing this questionnaire and carrying out future market engagement does not commit London Councils, PLVCCC Ltd or London local authorities to commence any related procurement process.

Interested parties are requested to complete and submit this questionnaire by Friday 6 June 2025.

Any questions please contact [email protected]

Questionnaire can be located here: : forms.office.com/e/C7f7grLith ↗

Interested Economic Operators can view additional information at www.proactisplaza.com ↗ > register as supplier (if not already) > access London Councils > search for Preliminary Market Engagement, Secure Children's Home.

Additional CPVs which could be in scope are:

7512 1000 Admin Educational Services

8000 0000 Education and Training Services

8010 0000 Primary Education Services

8020 0000 Secondary Education Services

8030 0000 Higher Education Services

8031 0000 Youth Education Services

7512 2000 Admin Health and Care Services

8510 0000 Health Services