con_23980 - Delivery Partner Support Contract (Early Years and Wraparound Childcare)

LAs are integral to the delivery of these programmes but require additional support to ensure they are in the best possible position to provide flexible and appropriate childcare in their areas. This tender seeks innovative bids from Potential Suppliers able to provide LAs with the advice, guidance and support they need to implement the reforms in their areas and overcome any challenges that could hinder implementation.

The successful Supplier will support 153 LAs (Unitary, Metropolitan Boroughs, London Boroughs, and County Councils). The contract covers England only.

The Supplier will provide expert support for LAs to support them to increase their capacity and expertise to deliver, supporting LAs to meet delivery milestones. This support will sit alongside support and guidance provided by DfE, to ensure LAs are able to meet their sufficiency duties for the expanded EY entitlements and deliver the wraparound childcare programme. All support provided through this contract should enable LAs to sustain activity beyond the life of this contract (i.e., beyond March 2026).

This support contract sits across both EY and the wraparound programme to ensure LAs receive joined-up support across both areas where required, to better enable authorities and DfE to realise synergies across the programmes, and to mitigate potential workload impacts for LAs. Where possible, and where this will support LAs most effectively, the requirements outlined in this section should be delivered jointly between both programmes.

While most requirements across the two programmes are broadly aligned, they differ with regard to the national monitoring of delivery. The wraparound programme requires a national delivery monitoring function involving the regular collection of LAs’ delivery plans. This is because wraparound is a novel programme requiring potentially new activity for LAs, and regular delivery plan submissions are a condition of their grant funding. However, the related EY requirement differs because DfE already collects significant amounts of data about EY delivery and will therefore monitor national readiness and sufficiency in-house, with support and input from the Supplier.

We welcome innovative bids that go beyond the requirements outlined in this specification where that can more effectively support LAs and have developed our scoring criteria with this in mind.