Find a TenderPlanned procurementPreliminary market engagement notice
Published 3 Aug 2026, 09:39 BST

Official UK procurement notice

Adult Carers Services – Preliminary Market Engagement

Authority: Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council (Local council)

ServicesAbove thresholdLight touch regimeSME suitableVCSE suitable
Planned pipeline value£1pipeline notice, not a live tender
Tender notice expected Date not publishedfrom the planned procurement notice
Contract term Ends 2 Nov 2027starts 1 Nov 2027

What is being bought

Published requirement description

Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council is undertaking a review of support services for unpaid adult carers aged 18 and over who provide care and support to another adult. As part of this work, the Council is seeking views from organisations that may have an interest in delivering future carers support services.

The purpose of this market engagement exercise is to help inform the future design, commissioning and procurement of adult carers services. The Council wishes to understand how a future service can best support unpaid adult carers, complement existing provision and funding streams, and deliver positive outcomes while avoiding unnecessary duplication.

The engagement will help the Council to:

  • Understand market capacity, capability and sustainability.
  • Explore potential delivery models and partnership arrangements.
  • Identify opportunities to improve support for unpaid adult carers.
  • Consider how future services can align with other local, regional and national initiatives.
  • Understand factors that may encourage or discourage participation in any future procurement process.
  • Inform the development of a future service specification and procurement approach.

The engagement process will include a market sounding questionnaire, a market engagement event, optional one-to-one discussions with commissioning officers and the production of a summary report.

The Council currently intends to use the findings from this engagement exercise to inform service design and procurement planning.

To express an interest in this engagement process please contact Serian Ganesh ([email protected]) or Jennifer Taylor ([email protected]) with your details.

Important Notice:

This engagement is being undertaken as preliminary market engagement only. It does not constitute a procurement exercise, invitation to tender, pre-qualification process, or commitment to undertake a future procurement.

Participation will not confer any advantage or disadvantage in any subsequent procurement process.

Any contract value, contract duration, commencement date, procurement timetable or other service information referred to within this notice is indicative only and is provided solely for market engagement purposes. The final service specification, contract structure, contract value, contract duration and procurement approach will be determined following completion of the review, market engagement activities and internal approval processes.

Please note the contract values and contract dates in this notice are purely for admin tidy up to populate mandatory fields required to complete the notice for publishing and shall not be paid attention to, the key aim of this notice is to promote the engagement process and help inform the future development and any procurement approach.

Organisations wishing to participate will be invited to complete a market sounding questionnaire and will have the opportunity to engage further through market engagement activities.

CPV: Health and social work services

The lotProcurement structure

single lot · no lot value published
Lot #1PlannedSMEVCSE
Contract period: 1 Nov 2027 – 2 Nov 2027
Delivery: WalesEligibility: SME eligibleVCSE eligible

Who is likely to bid for this lot ↓

Pipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published

How Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council buys Health and social work services (CPV 85), and who usually turns up

Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Health and social work services (CPV 85) →

1

How the contest usually goes

Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.

Question for the bid
The marketHealth and social work services (CPV 85) · Wales (Cymru)
What to do with it
How often do SMEs win?
i

How often small and medium firms win.

Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.

The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 4 of 7 known-size awards · market: division 85 · Wales (Cymru), n=318
57%58%

Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.

How often do local suppliers win?
i

How often local firms win similar work.

Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.

Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered. The market figure counts awards delivered in Wales (Cymru).

A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: 9 of 13 known-location awards · market: division 85 · Wales (Cymru), n=417
69%61%

Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered in the region where that award was delivered.

How long to a decision?
i

How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.

Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.

Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: no decision dates published · market: division 85 · Wales (Cymru), n=100
—40 days

Half of these awards have an award date within 40 days of the bid deadline.

How often single-bid or direct?
i

How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.

Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.

Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.

Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.

Last 36 months.

Buyer: at least 7 of 12 procurements with awards had no recorded rival · market: division 85 · Wales (Cymru), n=425
58%54%

Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.

How many bids did past lots attract?

i

How many bids past lots received.

Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.

Past bids do not predict this tender.

Last 36 months.

This buyer7 lots with bid counts · broad CPV 85
14% had one bid
The market238 lots with bid counts · division 85 · Wales (Cymru)
33% had one bid
Buyer / market · select a colour for counts
1 bid14% / 33%
Buyer: 1 of 7 lots with published bid counts. Market: 78 of 238 lots with published bid counts.
2–343% / 40%
Buyer: 3 of 7 lots with published bid counts. Market: 95 of 238 lots with published bid counts.
4–643% / 17%
Buyer: 3 of 7 lots with published bid counts. Market: 41 of 238 lots with published bid counts.
7+0% / 10%
Buyer: 0 of 7 lots with published bid counts. Market: 24 of 238 lots with published bid counts.

How did awards compare with estimates?

i

Where winning prices landed against estimates.

Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.

Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.

Last 36 months.

This buyer17 lots with estimate and award · all categories
53% below estimate
The market113 lots with estimate and award · division 85 · Wales (Cymru)
29% below estimate
Buyer / market · select a colour for counts
Below estimate53% / 29%
Buyer: 9 of 17 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 33 of 113 lots with an estimate and award.
Within ±2%41% / 62%
Buyer: 7 of 17 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 70 of 113 lots with an estimate and award.
Above estimate6% / 9%
Buyer: 1 of 17 lots with an estimate and award. Market: 10 of 113 lots with an estimate and award.
2

Assess each lot
i

What past awards tell you about each lot.

See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.

No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.

Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list

Lot #1CPV 85SME suitableNo real estimate

This lot lists more than one class in CPV 85. The comparison uses that group.

Expected competition
i

How many bids this lot may attract.

The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.

Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 238 past lots.

A forecast, not a list of bidders.

—No model forecast yet33% chance of a single bid
Past bids on 238 similar lots
1 bid33%
78 of 238 similar past lots received 1 bid (33%).
2–340%
95 of 238 similar past lots received 2–3 (40%).
4–617%
41 of 238 similar past lots received 4–6 (17%).
7+10%
24 of 238 similar past lots received 7+ (10%).
Comparable past lots usually drew 2 bids.
Commercial price forecast
i

Where the award price may land.

The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.

No comparable awards for this lot yet.

A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.

—No real estimate
The buyer published £1 as the estimate (a placeholder, not the contract’s value), so there is nothing to forecast against.

Who has supplied this buyer on similar work?
i

Who has done similar work for this buyer.

Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.

A past supplier may not bid again.

No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.

Who could compete for this lot?
i

Who could compete for this lot?

Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.

None is confirmed as a bidder.

Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.

About this data
  • Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
  • Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
  • Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
  • Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.

Procedure terms & legal framework

From the official record
Legal basis
UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
Procurement category
Services
Notice status
Planned procurement
Procurement threshold
Above threshold (FTS publication)
Regulatory regime
Light touch regime
Commercial structure
Stand-alone contract (no framework)
Competition type
Competitive procedure
GPA / WTO covered
Unspecified in notice
Recurring procurement
Unspecified in notice
First published
3 Aug 2026, 09:39 BST
Last source update
3 Aug 2026, 09:39 BST
FTS notice number
2026/S 000-073016
Latest notice
Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
Classification (CPV)
Health and social work services
Delivery area
Wales (UKL17)
Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-06d999 Find a Tender

How it was run

Official notice
Submission deadline
—

Timeline

3 Aug 2026 → 1 Nov 2027 · 3 dates
  1. Planning notice published87 days ago
    3 Aug 2026, 09:39 BST
  2. Today
    29 Oct 2026
  3. Market engagementin 3 days
    1 Nov 2026, 23:59 GMT

    Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council is inviting organisations that may be interested in delivering future support services for unpaid adult carers to participate in a programme of market engagement. The purpose of the engagement is to gather intelligence to support future commissioning decisions and the development of a future procurement approach.

    Market Sounding Questionnaire:

    Participating organisations will be invited to complete a market sounding questionnaire. The questionnaire will gather intelligence on:

    • Gaps, pressures and opportunities within current provision.
    • How a future Council-funded service can add value and align with other services and funding streams.
    • Market capability and capacity.
    • Partnership and collaboration opportunities.
    • Delivery models and procurement considerations.
    • Factors that may support or discourage participation in a future procurement process.

    Market Engagement Event:

    A market engagement event will provide an overview of the review and an opportunity for organisations to discuss emerging themes, future service requirements, delivery models and partnership opportunities. Participants will be able to share views and ask questions to help inform future commissioning intentions.

    One-to-One Discussions:

    Organisations will be offered the opportunity to participate in voluntary one-to-one discussions with commissioning officers. These discussions will provide an opportunity to explore market intelligence in greater detail, including service design, delivery approaches, partnership models, procurement considerations and implementation issues.

    Summary Report:

    Information gathered through the engagement process will be analysed and used to produce a summary report. The report will identify key themes, opportunities, risks and considerations and will be used to inform future service design, commissioning intentions and procurement planning. The report will not commit the Council to a particular procurement route or delivery model.

    Indicative Timeline:

    Notice published - Early August 2026

    Market sounding questionnaire - August to September 2026

    Market engagement event - September 2026

    One-to-one discussions - September to October 2026

    Summary report - November 2026

  4. Contract startsin 367 days
    1 Nov 2027

Notice history

1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender
  1. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    3 Aug 2026, 09:39 BST
    UK2

Commercial outcome & contract awards

Pipeline notice
Awards (0)
No award published
Contracts (0)
No contract published
Bid statistics
No aggregate bid statistics published

Contracting authority & participating public bodies

Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council

Contracting authorityPublic authority - sub-central governmentWelsh devolved regulations apply GB-PPON: PRGM-1776-LMWP Civic Centre, Port Talbot, Wales, SA13 1PJContact name, email

Official documents & specifications (1)

Official links; attachments are not copied

Notices published for this procedure