Find a TenderPast planning noticePreliminary market engagement notice
Published 24 Jun 2025, 07:53 BST

Official UK procurement notice

Agency Staff to provide Care and Support for Children with Complex Needs

Official notice

Authority: Cornwall Council (Local council)

ServicesAbove thresholdLight touch regime
Planned pipeline value£2,000,000pipeline notice, not a live tender
Tender notice expected Date not publishedfrom the planned procurement notice
Contract term 1 yrends 2 Nov 2026 · up to 2 Nov 2028 with extensions · starts 3 Nov 2025

What is being bought

Published requirement description

Cornwall Council has statutory responsibilities to help and protect children, including providing practical help, care and support to children and their families as part of support plans to enable children to remain safely at home in the care of their family, and providing children with an alternative suitable home where it is not safe for them to remain in the care of their family.

We are seeking providers who can provide intensive and specialist staffing where necessary to effectively support children with complex care and support needs. This includes supporting children and young people in significant distress and crisis, such as:

  • Providing practical support in the community and family homes, to enable families to stay together and prevent family breakdown.
  • Working alongside Cornwall children’s services staff and care providers to provide supplementary care and support for children, where there are significant safeguarding concerns and/or a risk of placement breakdown.
  • Same day responses to enable us to respond positively and proactively to changing need and children and families in crisis.
  • Providing additional support to children and young people where there are significant worries about their emotional wellbeing, which may be communicated through behaviours that challenge and behaviours that place the child at risk.
  • Working flexibly supporting children and families out of office hours, including evenings, weekends, and overnight.

CPV: Health and social work services · Other community, social and personal services

The lotProcurement structure

single lot · no lot value published
Lot #1PlannedRenewal 1 yr
Contract period: 3 Nov 2025 – 2 Nov 2026 (1 yr) · up to 2 Nov 2028 with extensions
Delivery: South West
Extensions: Extension options published

Procedure terms & legal framework

From the official record
Legal basis
UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
Procurement category
Services
Notice status
Past planning notice
Procurement threshold
Above threshold (FTS publication)
Regulatory regime
Light touch regime
Commercial structure
Stand-alone contract (no framework)
Competition type
Competitive procedure
GPA / WTO covered
Unspecified in notice
Recurring procurement
Unspecified in notice
First published
24 Jun 2025, 07:53 BST
Last source update
24 Jun 2025, 07:53 BST
Authority reference
DN779546
FTS notice number
2025/S 000-034546
Latest notice
Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
Classification (CPV)
Health and social work servicesOther community, social and personal services
Delivery area
South West (UKK3)
Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-05521e Find a Tender

How it was run

Official notice
Submission deadline
—

Timeline

24 Jun 2025 → 3 Nov 2025 · 3 dates
  1. Planning notice published
    24 Jun 2025, 07:53 BST
  2. Market engagement
    7 Jul 2025, 23:59 BST

    Cornwall Council is conducting a soft market assessment to gain an understanding of the potential level of interest across the Voluntary, NHS, Independent and Private Sector for the provision of agency staff where required for a child or young person under 18 years where there is a need for additional care and support as part of a coordinated multi-disciplinary care plan.

    It is intended that the responses supplied will enable the Council to develop a business proposal prior to re-commissioning local services. Any such proposal would be subject to the development and approval of a business case, and, as such, this exercise implies no commercial commitment. This is not a formal tender document, and all costings submitted are deemed hypothetical but will support us in identifying the best option for Cornwall.

    Participation of this soft market assessment will not prejudice suppliers participating in any future procurement.

    If you are interested in this area of service provision and also helping with our assessment of the market, please complete the “Information Required” section at the end of this notice along with any additional information you consider to be relevant and return this via the Due North / Supplying the South-West messaging system by 16:00 on Monday 7th July 2025.

  3. Contract starts359 days ago
    3 Nov 2025

Notice history

1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender
  1. Preliminary market engagement notice published
    24 Jun 2025, 07:53 BST
    UK2

Commercial outcome & contract awards

Pipeline notice
Awards (0)
No award published
Contracts (0)
No contract published
Bid statistics
No aggregate bid statistics published

Contracting authority & participating public bodies

Cornwall Council

Contracting authorityPublic authority - sub-central government GB-PPON: PYRH-9827-DWLP County Hall, Treyew Road, Truro, South West, TR1 3AYContact name, email, phone

Official documents & specifications (1)

Official links; attachments are not copied

Notices published for this procedure