CONTRACT NOTICE – OFFICIAL JOURNAL

Section I: Contracting Authority

I.1)

Name, Address and Contact Point(s)

I.2)

Type of contracting Authority and Main Activity or Activities

Ministry or any other national or federal authority, including their regional or local sub-divisions National or federal agency/Office Regional or local Authority Regional or local Agency/Office Body governed by public law European Institution/Agency or International Organisation

General public services Defence Public order and safety Environment Economic and financial affairs Health Housing and community amenities Social protection Recreation, culture and religion Education

Section II: Object of the Contract

II.1)

Description

II.1.1)

Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority

II.1.2(a))

Type of works contract

II.1.2(b))

Type of supplies contract

II.1.2(c))

Type of service contract

II.1.2)

Main site or location of works, place of delivery or performance

The city and county of Cardiff

II.1.3)

This notice involves

A public contract
The setting up of a Dynamic Purchasing System
The establishment of a framework agreement

II.1.4)

Information on framework agreement (if applicable)

Framework agreement with a single operators
Framework agreement with several operators

Number of participants to the framework agreement envisaged

Duration of the framework agreement

Justification for a framework agreement the duration of which exceeds four years

Estimated total value of purchases for the entire duration of the framework agreement

Frequency and value of the contracts to be awarded

II.1.5)

Short description of the contract or purchase(s)

Cardiff Council Education Service has a statutory obligation to provide a School Based Counselling Service and an Online Counselling Service in line with the Welsh Government’s Schools Standard and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013.

The service provided must be safe, accessible and of a high standard and in accordance with guidance and standards developed. The service should complement the range of approaches already available in schools that help to support the health, emotional and social needs of pupils and lead to a healthy school culture.

The Education Service requires a School Based Counselling Service that accessible to all eleven to nineteen year olds within a secondary school setting and year six pupils in primary schools. In addition, the Education Service requires an Online Counselling Service which reaches those service users not in a secondary school setting. The Online Counselling Service which will not only be accessible to those in an education setting but also those no longer in education, inclusive of young parents. The Online Counselling Service offers children and young people an alternative to face to face Counselling through peer support, chat rooms and blogs. The service must further offer one to one counselling via a secure chat room accessible to children and young people at a time convenient to them.

Therefore Cardiff Council is seeking to tender for the provision of counselling services for eleven to nineteen year olds both in education and those that are no longer in education.

The Council is seeking to commission the two services detailed above:

Lot 1 – Provision of a School Based Counselling Service

Lot 2 – Provision of an Online Counselling Service

Tenderers are invited to bid for one lot or two lots.

The contract[s] will be awarded to deliver the requirements for four years with the option to extend for up to a further year.

*****Important. To formally express your interest and obtain the tender documents please log in to the Council's e-procurement portal Alito (http://appswales.alito.co.uk) and register against the tender. Please ensure that your company profile includes the categories SP99 / SA21 and that you have indicated that you wish to work with Cardiff Council or you will not be able to acccess the tender. The tender documents are not available through the Sell2wales website*****

The indicative deadlines for this tender are as follows:

PROCUREMENT TIMETABLE

Please note: The Council reserves the right to change the timetable at its discretion.

Stage Date(s)/time

Issue of Invitation to Tender Wk Commencing 20th January

Closing date for submission of Tenders 20th February 2014

Evaluation of Tenders Complete by 3rd March

Tenderer interviews and presentations Complete by 3rd March.TBC

Notification of result of evaluation Friday 7th March 2014

Standstill period Monday 17th March 2014

Expected date of award of Contract(s) Tuesday 18th March 2014

Contract commencement 1st April 2014

Please note this is a Part B Service and although the Council is advertising this contract as best practice, the fleible timescales and process reflect the need of the service provision

NOTE: To register your interest in this notice and obtain any additional information please visit the Sell2Wales Web Site at http://www.sell2wales.gov.uk/Search/Search_Switch.aspx?ID=5584.

II.1.6)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

II.1.7)

Contract covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)

II.1.8)

Division into lots

one lot only

one or more lots

all lots

II.1.9)

Will variants be accepted

II.2)

Quantity or Scope of the Contract

II.2.1)

Total quantity or scope

II.2.2)

Options

Provisional timetable for recourse to these options

Number of possible renewals

In the case of renewable supplies or service contracts, estimated time frame for subsequent contracts

II.3)

Duration of the contract or limit for completion

Section III: Legal, Economic, Financial and Technical Information

III.1)

Conditions Relating to the Contract

III.1.1)

Deposits and guarantees required

III.1.2)

Main Terms of financing and payment and/or reference to the relevant provisions

III.1.3)

Legal form to be taken by the grouping of suppliers, contractors or service providers to whom the contract is to be awarded

III.1.4)

Other particular conditions to which the performance of the contract is subject

Welsh Government’s Schools Standard and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013 and the Education Service’s Requirement

The Welsh Assembly’s Government’s Schools Standard and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013 formalised the Welsh Government’s National Strategy for Developing School-based Counselling which was published in April 2008. The Welsh Assembly Government’s goal was to have counselling provision available to all school pupils to give them confidence that their needs will be heard and addressed. The service provided must be safe, accessible and of a high standard and in accordance with guidance and standards developed. The service should complement the range of approaches already available in schools that help to support the health, emotional and social needs of pupils and lead to a healthy school culture.

Formal Counselling

The Welsh Assembly’s Government’s National Strategy for Developing School-based Counselling identified the use of counselling as a form of one-to-one support for all pupils. The strategy clearly related to formal counselling provided by a professional counsellor acting in his or her specialist role rather than the use of wider counselling skills used by many people who work with children and young people. The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) makes a clear distinction between counselling skills and the process of counselling provided by a professional counsellor:

“Counselling takes place when a counsellor sees a client in a private and confidential setting to explore a difficulty the client is having, distress they may be experiencing or perhaps their dissatisfaction with life”.

III.2)

Conditions for Participation

III.2.1)

Personal situation of economic operators, including requirements relating to enrolment on professional or trade registers

(1) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that they are not bankrupt or the subject of an administration order, are not being wound-up, have not granted a trust deed, are not the subject of a petition presented for sequestration of their estate, have not had a receiver, manager or administrator appointed and are not otherwise apparently insolvent.

(2) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that the candidate, their directors, or any other person who has powers of representation, decision or control of the candidate has not been convicted of conspiracy, corruption, bribery, or money laundering. Failure to provide such a declaration will result in the candidate being declared ineligible and they will not be selected to participate in this procurement process.

(3) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that they have not been convicted of a criminal offence relating to the conduct of their business or profession.

(4) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that they have not committed an act of grave misconduct in the course of their business or profession.

(5) All candidates must comply with the requirements of the State in which they are established, regarding registration on the professional or trade register.

(6) Any candidate found to be guilty of serious misrepresentation in providing any information required, may be declared ineligible and not selected to continue with this procurement process.

(7) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that they have fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions under the law of any part of the United Kingdom or of the relevant State in which the candidate is established

(8) All candidates will be required to produce a certificate or declaration demonstrating that they have fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of taxes under the law of any part of the United Kingdom or of the relevant State in which the economic operator is established.

III.2.2)

Economic and financial capacity

III.2.3)

Technical capacity

III.2.4)

Reserved contracts

The contract is restricted to sheltered workshops
The execution of the contract is restricted to the framework of sheltered employment programmes

III.3)

Conditions Specific to Service Contracts

III.3.1)

Is provision of the service reserved to a specific profession?

III.3.2)

Will legal entities be required to state the names and professional qualifications of the personnel responsible for the execution of the service?

Section IV: Procedure

IV.1)

Type of Procedure

Open		Restricted
Accelerated restricted		Negotiated
Accelerated negotiated		Competitive dialogue

Justification for the choice of accelerated procedure

IV.1.1)

Have candidates already been selected?

IV.1.2)

Limitations on the number of operators who will be invited to tender or to participate

Objective criteria for choosing the limited number of candidates

IV.1.3)

Reduction of the number of operators during the negotiation or dialogue

Recourse to staged procedure to gradually reduce the number of solutions to be discussed or tenders to be negotiated

IV.2)

Award Criteria

IV.2.2)

An electronic auction will be used

IV.3 Administrative Information

IV.3.1)

Reference number attributed to the notice by the contracting authority

9249CCC

IV.3.2)

Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract

Prior Information Notice
Notice on a Buyer Profile

Other previous publications

IV.3.3)

Conditions for obtaining specifications and additional documents

IV.3.4)

Time-limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate

IV.3.5)

Date of dispatch of invitations to tender or to participate to selected candidates

IV.3.6)

Language or languages in which tenders or requests to participate can be drawn up

IV.3.7)

Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender 

IV.3.8)

Conditions for opening tenders

Section VI: Other Information

VI.1)

Indicate whether this procurement is a recurrent one and the Estimated timing for further notices to be published

VI.2)

Does the contract relate to a Project/Programme financed by Community Funds?

VI.3)

Additional Information

Cardiff Council seeks to appoint a provider[s] to deliver two counselling services to eleven to nineteen year olds who are live in Cardiff. The first service is for school based counselling and the second is for online counselling. The services provided must be safe, accessible and of a high standard and in accordance with guidance and standards developed. The services should complement the range of approaches already available in schools that help to support the health, emotional and social needs of pupils and lead to a healthy school culture. Counsellors within both services must work to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Guidelines and must have experience of working with eleven to nineteen year olds.

The Invitation to Tender consists of two lots as detailed in the Tender documentation:

Lot 1 is for the provision of a school based counselling service for eleven to nineteen year olds in Cardiff. The provision must be delivered at all secondary settings and a service must be available and accessible to year six children in primary schools throughout the city. This service delivers face to face counselling to children and young people who are experiencing emotional or mental conflict for which the support of and intervention by a professional counsellor would appropriately allow those young people to talk over difficult issues, express their views, feelings and experiences without judgement.

Lot 2 is for the provision of an online counselling service which must be available to all eleven to nineteen years olds across the city, inclusive of those who are not in education and young parents. This service provides information, blogs, peer support and one to one counselling via a private chat room with a counsellor.

Tenderers are invited to bid for either one or both lots

Additional Information

We will evaluate the provider’s ability to meet minimum selection criteria, such as for insurance, financial standing, past experience, equalities and health & safety record, and to satisfactorily deliver the requirements of the service specification.

Please note: It is the Council's opinion that TUPE will apply to Lot 1: provision of school based counselling service, but prospective tenderers should not rely on this opinion and must take their own legal advice on the matter.

To express an interest and download the tender documents for this opportunity, please go to the Council's e-tendering website http://appswales.alito.co.uk and if you are not already registered, please complete the free registration process ensuring that you select Cardiff and the category code SA21 – Information & Advice. Once you have registered, please go to tender 9249CCC and express an interest. You will then be able to download the documentation.

Please ensure that you read the tender documents carefully in order to be aware of the requirements of the process and all the relevant deadlines.

***** Tender Documentation can only be accessed through the Council's Website and not through Sell2Wales***

(WA Ref:5584)

VI.4)

Procedures for appeal

VI.4.1)

Body responsible for appeal procedures

Body responsible for mediation procedures

VI.4.2)

Lodging of appeals
Precise information on deadline(s) for lodging appeals:

Lodging of Appeals The Authority will incorporate the mandatory standstill period as directed by the Public Contracts Regulation 32 (1) to 32 (2A) and send the award decision notice which will include: the award criteria, the reasons for the decision including the characteristics and relative advantages of the successful winner; the recipient of the notice and any reasons why the recipient did not meet the technical specification; the name of the party to be awarded the Contract, and a precise statement of when the standstill period is expected to end, including any reasons that it may not end when envisaged. Applicants will have the duration of the standstill period to ask further questions or bring proceedings. Such information should be sought from the contact named in Section 1.1 of this notice. The Authority is now automatically obliged to refrain from entering into a Contract when proceedings are brought in respect of the award decision and the Contract has not been entered into or the framework concluded. The Contractor must serve the legal claim form on the contracting authority (in acc or dance with rules of court) that represents the formal trigger for the Authority to suspend the Contract-making. The automatic suspension remains in force until either the court terminates the suspension or the proceedings come to an end.

VI.4.3)

Service from which information about the lodging of appeals may be obtained

VI.5)

Dispatch date of this Notice

ANNEX A

Additional Addresses and Contact Points

I)

Address and contact points from which further information can be obtained

III)

Address and contact points to which Tenders/Requests to Participate must be sent

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

Lot 1 is for the provision of a school based counselling service for eleven to nineteen year olds in Cardiff.

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

The provision must be delivered at all secondary settings and a service must be available and accessible to year six children in primary schools throughout the city. This service delivers face to face counselling to children and young people who are experiencing emotional or mental conflict for which the support of and intervention by a professional counsellor would appropriately allow those young people to talk over difficult issues, express their views, feelings and experiences without judgement.

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots

ANNEX B

Information About Lots

1)

Short Description

Lot 2 is for the provision of an online counselling service This service provides information, blogs, peer support and one to one counselling via a private chat room with a counsellor.

2)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

3)

Quantity or scope

This must be available to all eleven to nineteen years olds across the city, inclusive of those who are not in education and young parents.

4)

Indication about different contract dates

5)

Additional Information about lots