Fire Stopping and Passive Fire Protection Works (Civic Buildings) Closed Framework 2026 - 2029

Introduction

Leeds City Council (the "Council") is looking to establish a framework of suitably qualified contractors to deliver Fire Risk Assessment Works across the Council's civic and heritage estate.

To support this, the Council would like to gain information from the market regarding a number of issues related to the potential procurement exercise. You are therefore invited to consider the programme requirements detailed in this document and complete the attached questionnaire to give us your feedback on the proposed approach.

The Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) is being conducted in accordance with the requirements set out in Section 16 of the Procurement Act 2023.

This PME exercise is not a formal invitation to tender or a request for formal expressions of interest. The Council, as a contracting authority, is issuing this request for information only in order to assess the reaction of the market and thus make any potential procurement process more focused and efficient.

This PME process is being undertaken to gather knowledge in the following areas:

developing the Council's requirements and approach to the procurement.

designing a procedure, conditions of participation or award criteria.

preparing the tender notice and associated tender documents.

identifying suppliers that may be able to supply the goods, works or services required.

identifying likely contractual terms.

building capacity among suppliers in relation to the contract being awarded.

The benefits to interested suppliers in participating in this PME include:

the chance to assess whether the opportunity will be suitable and of interest to you.

the chance to raise any risks, concerns or issues regarding the potential opportunity.

This document provides background information regarding the fire stopping and passive fire protection, and Fire Alarm System Design, Supply and Installation. Also set out in this document are a number of questions designed to find out:

your appetite for bidding for a contract to deliver this requirement.

your views on any barriers to delivering the service and possible solutions to those barriers.

Your responses will assist us in creating a procurement process which is well-framed, focused, feasible and likely to be of interest to the market. This process focuses on the market as a whole, rather than on the merits of individual organisations.

Returned questionnaires will be assessed based on the responses to the questions identified at Appendix 1. Please ensure you complete and return this document prior to the closing date and time as set out above.

Background

The Council's Decarbonisation and Planned Maintenance team are responsible for carrying out fire stopping and passive fire protection works and fire alarm system design, supply and commissioning across the civic estate.

To assist with this programme, we are looking to procure a closed framework which will run initially for 3 years from 1st April 2026 to 31st March 2029.

The framework will be divided into two lots as follows:

Lot 1: Fire Stopping and Passive Fire Protection Works - Up to 5 contractors will be appointed to this lot and the contract will have a value of up to £2.5m per annum.

Works packages will be allocated on a rotational basis with the first ranked contractor receiving the first works package and the second ranked contractor receiving the second works package and so on until reverting to the first ranked contractor.

Lot 2: Fire Alarm Systems Design, Supply and Commissioning - Up to 2 contractors will be appointed to this lot and the contract will have a value of up to £500k per annum.

Works packages will be allocated on a rotational basis with the first ranked contractor receiving the first works package and the second ranked contractor receiving the second works package before reverting to the first ranked contractor.

Both lots will have the option to extend by a further period of 12 months, subject to the discretion of the Council.

The procurement will be conducted as an above-threshold open tender in line with the Procurement Act 2023.

Scope

Lot 1 - Fire Stopping and Passive Fire Protection works

Surveys

Fire Stopping

Compartmentation

Fire Stopping photography (before and after)

Certificate of compliance

Fire door sets

Fire door planned maintenance

All materials used will comply with British Standards or their equivalents and contractors will have FIRAS or equivalent accreditation,

The timescales for the completion of works will depend on the scale required and will, therefore, be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

For clarity, only providers who can deliver all works requirements to the Council's civic and heritage properties will be considered further.

The proposed form of contract is the NEC4 ECC Option A.

Lot 2 - Fire Alarm Design, Supply and Commissioning

Design new or replacement systems in accordance with British Standards or their equivalents.

Installation of the fire alarms where Leeds Building Services do not have the sufficient resources.

The proposed form of contract is the NEC4 ECC Option A.

Preliminary Market Engagement

To assist the Council in developing this procurement, we would appreciate responses from interested suppliers on the following key questions in the context of the information provided above. Additional comments are welcome, although respondents are requested to specifically address the questions rather than attaching extensive technical or promotional information.

You should complete the Appendix 1 document and return via YORtender by 12 noon on Friday 5th December 2025. Please ensure your answers are relevant to each specific question. Please do not send any attachments or additional documents as they will not be considered.

Stage

Estimated dates

Preliminary Market Engagement

Monday 24th November to Friday 5th December 2025

Tender publication

Tuesday 6th January 2026

Tender submission deadline

Thursday 12th February 2026

Assessment and evaluation/Client Review

Monday 16th to Friday 27th February 2026

Approvals

Friday 6th March 2026

Contract Award Notice and Standstill period

Monday 9th to Wednesday 18th March 2026

Contract Award

Friday 27th March 2026

Contact start date

1st April 2026

Consortia

The Council welcomes responses from potential consortia (i.e. whereby suppliers join together in submitting a response to the requirements outlined in this document).

Compliments and Complaints

Any compliments, complaints or feedback regarding this PME can be made to the named Procurement Lead as indicated above.

Open Data and Freedom of Information

The Council is committed to openness and transparency in its activities and its decisions. In addition, the Council is subject to legislation and guidance relating to information publishing and open data, including the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

Please state in your response any information that you wish to remain confidential and confirm that it fits within a legally recognised exemption. Please also provide contact details within your response so that should the Council need to consult you on any information request; we can do this promptly.

You are advised that information which falls into the Council's interpretation of exempted information may still have to be disclosed in some circumstances, for example as a result of an appeal by a member of the public against our initial decision not to reveal information.

Incurred Expenses

The Council will not be responsible for, or pay, any costs or losses or expenses which you or others incur during the preparation and submission of your PME response.

Disclaimer

The publication of this PME document does not commit the Council to any particular procurement process or to take forward this project in any way.

For the avoidance of doubt, this document is issued for the purpose of conducting an information gathering exercise and does not formally begin the procurement process.

Responding to this PME will not place you in a more favourable position at the tender stage of this or any other project.

Queries

If you have any questions in relation to this PME these should be submitted via the 'Discussions' facility in YORtender. Where the response to an enquiry does not relate to commercially confidential matters, the Council will copy the response to all organisations who have expressed an interest in this exercise. If you wish to avoid such disclosures, you should clearly mark the enquiry "In Confidence" and set out the reasons for the request for non-disclosure. The Council will, at its sole discretion, decide whether the enquiry is confidential and if it does not consider it to be so, you will have the option of withdrawing the enquiry. This does not affect the Council's statutory obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

If you have any problem submitting your response (Appendix 1) or experience issues with the YORtender system prior to the deadline, or you require further guidance on any of the processes within the YORtender system, please contact the YORtender helpdesk on:

Tel: 0800 840 2050

Email: [email protected]

To complete the PME, please download the PME document from YORtender ref: 104745. To access YORtender, please use the following weblink: uk.eu-supply.com/login.asp ↗