Official UK procurement notice
Preliminary Market Engagement - Digital Pocket Money Solution (Children's Homes)
Authority: Warwickshire County Council (Local council)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionWarwickshire County Council ("the Council") is undertaking Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) to explore the provision of a digital pocket money solution to support children and young people in its care, including those placed in residential children's homes.
The Council currently operates a range of locally managed, predominantly cash-based processes to administer pocket money and personal funds. While these arrangements are functional, they present challenges in relation to financial control, auditability, safeguarding oversight, and administrative efficiency, as well as consistency of practice across different settings.
As part of its wider finance transformation and digitalisation agenda, the Council is seeking to understand the market for secure, user-friendly solutions that can:
- Improve financial governance and transparency, including full audit trails and reporting
- Strengthen safeguarding arrangements, ensuring appropriate use of funds and oversight by carers and the corporate parent
- Reduce manual administration and cash handling risks
- Provide a simple, accessible user experience for children, young people, and staff
- Enable scalable, standardised processes across multiple homes and cohorts
The Council is particularly interested in solutions such as prepaid cards, digital wallets, or app-based platforms that are suitable for use in regulated care environments and can operate within a local authority control framework.
This PME exercise is intended to:
- Understand available solutions, delivery models, and levels of market maturity
- Inform the Council's requirements, specification, and procurement strategy
- Identify potential risks, implementation considerations, and dependencies
- Assess supplier appetite and innovation opportunities
This exercise does not represent a commitment to procure any solution at this stage. However, the information gathered will directly inform a future business case and any subsequent procurement activity, with a focus on achieving best value, compliance, and improved outcomes for children and young people.
CPV: Financial and insurance services · Software package and information systems
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedPipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Warwickshire County Council buys Software package and information systems (CPV 48), and who usually turns up
Warwickshire County Council’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Software package and information systems (CPV 48) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
i
How often small and medium firms win.
Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.
The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.
Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered. The market figure counts awards delivered in West Midlands.
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered outside the region where that award was delivered.
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards have an award date within 61 days of the bid deadline.
i
How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.
Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.
The market share is a minimum: some awards have no bid count.
Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.
Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.
How many bids did past lots attract?
i
How many bids past lots received.
Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.
Past bids do not predict this tender.
1 bid18% / 13%
2–326% / 32%
4–630% / 34%
7+26% / 21%
How did awards compare with estimates?
i
Where winning prices landed against estimates.
Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.
Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.
Below estimate18% / 44%
Within ±2%68% / 24%
Above estimate13% / 32%
Assess each lot i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list
Lot #1CPV 48Estimate not published
This lot lists more than one class in CPV 48. The comparison uses that group.
i
How many bids this lot may attract.
The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.
Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 38 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid13%
2–332%
4–634%
7+21%
i
Where the award price may land.
The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.
No comparable awards for this lot yet.
A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.
Who has supplied this buyer on similar work? i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.
Who could compete for this lot? i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.
About this data
- Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
- Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
- Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
- Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Above threshold (FTS publication)
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 5 Aug 2026, 19:00 BST
- Last source update
- 5 Aug 2026, 19:00 BST
- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-074419- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-06dcf6Find a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
5 Aug 2026 → 1 Feb 2027 · 3 dates- Planning notice published84 days ago5 Aug 2026, 19:00 BST
- Market engagement61 days ago28 Aug 2026, 23:59 BST
This is not a procurement/tender exercise at this point.
The Council invites interested parties to complete the Market Testing Questionnaire that is available via In-Tend Sell2 Warwickshire Portal
sell2.in-tend.co.uk/midlands/home ↗
You should also submit any queries regarding this PME via the Correspondence function within the Warwickshire Portal.
Information gathered from the market test will enable the Council to identify the option that best meets the Council's strategic objectives and offers best value for money. The Council reserves the right to recall any provider to explore an option in more detail if required.
Please be aware that any resultant tender exercise will require the participant to register on the Central Digital Platform (CDP) and have uploaded information about their organisation.
Organisations that have not previously registered on the Sell2 site will be required to do so in order to access the Warwickshire portal.
If you are unable to register with the Sell2 portal please email the procurement team at [email protected]
- Today29 Oct 2026
- Contract startsin 94 days1 Feb 2027
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published5 Aug 2026, 19:00 BSTUK2
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (1)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender