Statutory Advocacy Services For Adults Market Engagement

Westminster City Council and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will be embarking on the recommissioning Advocacy Services. These will expire on the 31st March 2023. Jointly, the Authorities are looking to retender this service to continue fulfilling the statutory requirements to deliver Advocacy provision to eligible Adults, whilst deriving value for money and maintaining current high-quality standards. The contract will also encompass the provision of out of borough IMCA and Deprivation of Liberty Standards paid representatives. Under the new service model, a Lead Provider would be contracted to provide Statutory Advocacy Services for Adults. This requires the provision of skilled advocates, with specialist knowledge and training. The ‘lead provider’ would be responsible for the following: • Provision of Statutory Advocacy Services (IMCA, DOLs Paid Representatives, IMHA, ICAA and IHCA) – ensuring continuity of advocates for service users. • Coordination of the provision of Statutory Advocacy Services for persons living outside of the borough where WCC and RBKC retains a duty to provide services. • Ensuring the skills of the advocacy workforce across the entire pathway – providing training and development to local and specialist providers to increase the pool of qualified advocates in the borough to meet the language and cultural needs of the individuals seeking support • DOLs requirements The Lead provider would be expected to contribute to the effective provision of Non-Statutory Advocacy in the borough through: • Training other providers in basic advocacy • Encouraging the development of peer-advocacy support groups • Training volunteers to support other organisations • Prevention and Early Intervention prior to statutory advocacy – reduce demand on the service (key aim) With this shift, we want to host a series of engagement opportunities with existing and potential providers, which includes the completion of a questionnaire and a market engagement event. This event will provide an opportunity to discuss proposed models and how services will be delivered in the future. We are keen to hear your views and utilise your expertise to commission a high-quality service. We are particularly interested in working with organisations that can explore and create new approaches to improve the needs of residents. Organisations with experience of delivering these types of services will also be invited to attend a supplier engagement which will provide further insight of the requirements, the services, indicative time scales and procurement approach. Kindly register your expression of interest via our e-tendering portal; pqq_ASC_1773 - Advocacy Services for Adults - Market Sounding Questionnaire opportunity, Further information in regards to time and joining the market engagement event will be made available to registered delegates via the e-tendering portal. Additional information: This tendering exercise is being undertaken using the electronic tendering system 'capitalEsourcing' (www.capitalesourcing.com). Suppliers will need to register an interest on the system in order to participate, and registration is free.