Merton Adult Learning Main Delivery Service

Merton Council wishes to see the continuance of a broad range of courses under the commissioning model including: A mixture of accredited and non-accredited learning.

Different levels of courses from basic to more advanced.

Varied scheduling throughout the day and evening and to include weekend courses where appropriate.

Delivery throughout Merton Borough as far as possible and particularly in the east of the borough.

Delivery throughout Merton Borough as far as possible and particularly in the east of the borough. The OJEU Contract Notice and Invitation to Tender (ITT) was published on 12 October 2020 via the London Tenders Portal, using the Open tender procedure. The submission deadline was the 23rd of November 2020 at Midday. 5 submissions were received, and the evaluation of the bids was carried out in line with the evaluation methodology of the tender.

Of the 5 tender submissions received by the submission deadline, 3 were deemed compliant.

The tender evaluation comprised of three stages: the first of which was a compliance check, on a pass/fail basis; the second was the quality and technical evaluation in line with the methodology prescribed in the tender; and the third was the assessment of price.

The tender evaluation was carried out by a panel of three officers from the Merton Adult Learning management team. Each compliant tender was evaluated individually by each member of the evaluation panel to undertake the quality and technical evaluation.

The panel met on 24 November to discuss individual scores and comments for each question in order to arrive at an agreed, moderated score.

A quality threshold was contained within the evaluation methodology. Suppliers who failed to meet this threshold would be disqualified from the process, and would not be progressed to stage 3 - price assessment. Only one supplier satisfactorily met the quality and technical threshold.

Of the 5 tenders received, 4 were considered to have pricing that was low. One supplier passed the quality threshold for the quality evaluation, the other bid prices were reviewed (although not evaluated) to enable a more thorough review and understanding of the remaining compliant bid.

The procurement documents states that the contract would be awarded on the basis of the most economically advantageous tender to the Council, based on a 70% Technical / Quality and 30% Price split.

The bids were evaluated against the following Quality and Technical criteria:

Experience of delivering similar provision, Quality Assurance, Range of course provision and qualifications, Marketing and promotion , Governance/Management, geographic spread of delivery in Merton,Transition including TUPE, Innovation and Social Value.

The successful bidder is a well-established and large college group that currently delivers provision across 4 London boroughs, including Merton. They have similar commissioned contracts in place with two other London boroughs and have a proven track record of delivering high quality adult learning courses.

The bidder demonstrated value for money in their proposals and outlined a more diverse course offer that will address the skills needs of residents. They have demonstrable experience of delivery and high quality systems in place to ensure that residents progress and achieve in their courses. They also have excellent in borough facilities that mean that Merton residents will have access to high quality and specialist equipment for some courses. The provider also demonstrated its ability to be able to quickly adjust its plans in light of any future disruption and has a large and expanding online course offer.