Home to School Transport - Minibuses

Direct Award - Urgency

This is a transparency notice to inform the market that Swindon Borough Council is directly awarding a contract to Swindon Community Action Ltd for a period of 12 months from 1st September 2025 to 31st August 2026.

This direct award is made under Section 41(1)(a) and Schedule 5, Paragraph 13 and 14 (Urgency) of the Procurement Act 2023.

In July 2025, Swindon Borough Council undertook a Further Competition process for the provision of Home to School Transport Minibus services via the Councils existing Dynamic Procurement System (DPS). However, the Council was unable to conclude the successful award of call off contracts due to a combination of non-compliant tenders (such as specification compliance and mobilisation date) and Best Value considerations, specifically the affordability to operate the services. The post tender clarification process relating to specification compliance, contract mobilisation and route acceptance, delayed the evaluation process.

As a direct result of the failure to conclude the award of the call off contracts, the Council now has to arrange the delivery of the services that are considered strictly necessary for reasons of extreme and unavoidable urgency in time for the new school year.

To minimise the number of routes to be directly awarded, existing contractual provisions for various Home to School transport contract extensions are being activated, however this leaves a total of 56 routes that need to be directly awarded for a total of £1,646,603.80 for a 12 month period.

The proposed contract award will ensure continuity of these essential statutory services.