Following a very useful meeting with DWP Officials yesterday (Friday) we have now invited all of the 116 people who had pre-registered by 6 pm on Thursday to register for places. Those who pre-registered on Friday will shortly be invited to register. The programme will open for general registration from late on Wednesday 28th May when the full programme and registration forms will be available on this site.
To find out more about the PCO Programme of events please click on the line above "Learn More about the Public Contract Opportunities Programme". To return to this page please click on the PCO logo.
We are delighted that the DWP has now given approval to our proposed programme of dates and locations. We will shortly begin to invite those 116 people who have pre-registered to proceed to definite booking. We are still accepting pre-registrations. To get on the list please follow the guide on the next page.
We are receiving confirmation form a wide range of umbrella bodies of onward transmission of details of this programme. We are most grateful to everyone who is helping in this way.
An important aspect of these events is to bring together organisations who may wish to consider a sub-contracting or consortium arrangement with others. Arrangements might include small and large charities working together; IPS and private companies; small charities or a co-operative with a large housing association. Co-operation offers hope for the future as contracts become fewer, larger and broader. These events will provide an number of opportunities to start building those, all important relationships for tendering for future contracts
We feel that it is important to differentiate between Commissioning and Procurement. The PCO events will be about Procurement. We understand Commissioning to mean the identification of the need for public services, consultation regarding need, making the business case for services to be purchased, and holding the budget to buy the services. We take Procurement to mean the actual process for purchasing, the selection of the winning tender(s), compliance with all of the complex procurement legislation, finalising the contractual terms and entering into the contract.
So the contract, which we signed last Friday has begun in ernest. We are to deliver twelve one-day courses of training, to include an overview of procurement, and consortium tendering and in particular, providing services as part of a supply chain by the end of June. Due to the very short notice we decided to invite people to "pre-register" in order that we could get publicity out about the training as well as enabling us to identify a priority group who are really keen to attend the events. People who are pre-registered will be given priority in terms of the course they wish to attend as well as confirmation of their place. To pre-register just send the information set out on the "about " page to pco@tenderingforcare.com.
The first day of advertising produced over 60 pre-registrations, so interest apears to be high. We are very grateful to NAVCA for their help in publicising the the PCO programme to their Members. If you run a membership organisation for third sector bodies, or small businesses and would like to promote the events to your Members please telephone 01629 583916, or email pco@tenderingforcare.com for further details.
We expect that exact dates and venues will become available later this week. Please watch this site. We will post this information as soon as they are confirmed.
One final note for this morning - although our business name is Tendering for Care, our work on tendering and procurement extends over all sections of the voluntary, charity, social enterprise and small business sectors. This aspect of the business was originally set up to provide help for care providers but has expanded in its coverage considerably over the past three years.
We will try to post news on a daily basis on this section of the site.
