Voluntary and Community Sector Infrastructure

The Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) is material to the social fabric of communities. Encouraging social inclusion and contributing to community cohesion and health outcomes for residents, by galvanising community action and developing resilience in communities. Engaged communities are our most powerful agents of change for the creation of a thriving Essex for the benefit of residents. Essex County Council (ECC) is committed to investment into the infrastructure that supports the VCS. This support aims to create the conditions for communities to thrive by building capacity and resilience within the VCS, supporting community volunteering, facilitating collaboration and partnership working, and advocating for the VCS within the wider system. ECC is seeking to procure a collaborative, transformational and flexible VCS infrastructure offer, that delivers capacity building and system working support, identified as important by the VCS and Statutory Partners. An offer that brings together the skills and expertise to deliver the organisation’s ambitions for Essex communities, for the benefit of residents. Additional information: The value given in the contract notice for the five-year contract period must not exceed £3,258,370. There is scope for potential additional investment from system partners of up to 15% which equates to £488,755.50 which totals £3,747,125.50. In addition for the two year contract extension (based on the assumption on the same level of funding subject to governance) this equates to £1,303,348 over the two years there is also scope for additional investment from system partners of up 15% which equates to £195,502.20 which totals £1,498,850,20. Any requirements for variations would be dealt with as a contract variation under the terms of the contract. Therefore for absolute clarity the stated estimated contract value of £5,245,975.70 reflects the maximum contractual value including the options to extend and the additional financial scope. For the avoidance of any further doubt, this contractual value is based on an annual value of up to £651,674 for the five-year contract period.