Assistance Centre to Provide Professional Qualifications Advice and Signposting for UK and Overseas Users

This notice is intended to:

1. Advise of the forthcoming virtual market engagement event which will be held on 10 October 2022 between 15:00 and 16:00; and
2. Ask suppliers to complete a short questionnaire; and
3. Assess market interest and capability to deliver the UK Assistance Centre requirements.

The UK Assistance Centre will be the service responsible for providing information and advice to support overseas professionals seeking to practise their profession in the UK, and UK-qualified professionals seeking to work overseas. The Assistance Centre is the single point of contact for information for those seeking to work in regulated professions. A regulated profession is one in which there are restrictions to pursuing the activities or a subset of activities of the profession, such as for doctors, and/or restrictions for using a professional title, such as the use of 'architect.'

The service will provide support to overseas professionals looking for information on the qualification and experience requirements to work in UK regulated and chartered professions, and to UK-qualified users looking for information on the regulatory requirements to work overseas. We anticipate that this will primarily be through the signposting of users towards the relevant regulator or professional body. Queries can include information about entry or practice requirements for regulated professions in the UK, and overseas professions.

Advice relating to regulatory entry requirements to work in the UK will be provided by regulators and professional bodies. This information needs to be maintained on a newly designed gov.uk database (the Regulated Professions Register). Regulators and professional bodies will be responsible for maintaining the information in the database and ensuring that it remains up to date. The Assistance Centre supplier will facilitate this.

We are keen to work with interested suppliers to develop the scope of the service. At this stage, we are interested in hearing ideas from suppliers on how they propose delivering the individual elements of the service, and better understand the level of market interest.

This notice has been issued with a high-level overview of the service requirements and proposed market engagement activities. The market engagement will consist of two separate activities:

1. A supplier questionnaire
2. A Virtual Market Engagement Event

The overall aim of these engagements will be to:

• Provide the opportunity to engage with the market and assess market interest in delivering the UK Assistance Centre requirements; and
• Allow interested parties to ask questions about the UK Assistance Centre service.

Supplier Questionnaire:

Suppliers are invited to complete the questionnaire ahead of the Virtual Market Engagement Event on 10 October 2022. Responses to the questionnaire will be used to inform the content of the Virtual Market Engagement Event.

The questionnaire can be accessed here:

forms.office.com/r/g5rfa0ApiM ↗