School Based Counselling

Renfrewshire Children’s Services are seeking to contract for a school-based counselling service. It will cover three primary schools and one secondary school to provide therapeutic support and improve the mental health and wellbeing and emotional resilience of children and young people.

This contract aims to support children and young people referred to the service by the school - usually those with more complex needs.

The service will be available for at least two consecutive days a week in two of the primary schools and 2.5 consecutive days a week in one primary and the secondary school throughout school term time.

It is expected that flexible, culturally appropriate and inequalities-sensitive approaches will be used and that the interested organisations will demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the pattern of inequalities in Renfrewshire and of the barriers in working in communities with high levels of deprivation.

Full details of the exclusion and assessment criteria are detailed within the SPD and Invitation to Tender.

Tenderers are required to:

• Complete the SPD to be concluded for the Contract.
• Complete a SPD by sub-contractors to be concluded for the Contract.
• Comply with the Service Specification;
• Comply with the General Conditions of Contract and Special Conditions of Contract (H&SC);
• Confirm if managerial staff and those delivering the service are appropriately registered (as noted within the Tender Documents);
• Confirm staff have been PVG checked.

The contract may be modified in accordance with Regulation 72 of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.

The Council will use Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) to assist in its determination of the organisation’s financial status and risk. The Council would expect Tenderers to have a minimum D&B Failure Score of 20, however failure to meet this Failure Score would not necessarily merit a ‘FAIL’ as the D&B Failure Score is only one factor used by the Council in assessing the acceptability or otherwise of a Tenderer’s financial status.

The Council will take into account the Tenderer’s response to the SPD Part 1V Question 4B.1.1. Further information is contained within the Tender Documents.

It is recommended that tenderers review their own D&B Failure Score in advance of submitting their tender submission. If, following this review, Tenderers consider that the D&B Failure Score does not reflect their current financial status, the tenderer should attach a document to this section giving a detailed explanation together with any relevant supporting independent evidence. The Council will review any such information as part of the evaluation of Tenderer’s financial status.

Where the Tenderer is under no obligation to publish accounts and therefore does not have a D&B Failure Score or equivalent rating, they must provide their audited financial accounts for the previous 2 years as part of their Tender Submission in order that the Council may assess these to determine the suitability of the Tenderer to undertake a Contract of this size.

Where a consortium bid is received, the D&B Failure Score of each consortium member shall be assessed. Any accounts or documents submitted must be in English and, if appropriate, certified as accurate translations.

For Sole Traders please provide submitted Tax Returns for the previous 3 years as part of the Tender Submission in order that the Council may assess these to determine the suitability of the Tenderer to undertake a Contract of this size.

Where the Tenderer is a subsidiary of a group but is applying as a separate legal entity and fails to meet the minimum D&B Failure Score (or equivalent) as a company, a parent company or bank guarantee may be required to allow progression in the tender process.

The Council will be the sole judge as to whether these are required and it shall notify Tenderers accordingly. The parent company or bank guarantee must meet the minimum financial requirements as assessed by the Council and must be in the form requested by the Council.

Where the Tenderer intends to sub-contract more than 25% of any Contract value to a single sub-contractor then the foregoing actions will apply similarly to the relevant sub-contractor(s). The Council also reserves the right to reject the use of sub-contractors following evaluation of the sub-contractor’s financial status.

The buyer is using PCS-Tender to conduct this ITT exercise. The Project code is 24037. For more information see: http://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/info/InfoCentre.aspx?ID=2343

Community benefits are included in this requirement. For more information see: https://www.gov.scot/policies/public-sector-procurement/community-benefits-in-procurement/

A summary of the expected community benefits has been provided as follows:

Information regarding Community Benefits is contained within the Invitation to Tender documentation.