Readiness Checks of Greater Manchester Combined Authority and West Midlands Combined Authority

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) ("The Contracting Authority") invites tenders to provide input and execute external readiness checks of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the West Midlands Combined Authority (together, "the MCAs") to provide assurance of readiness for the 'single settlement'

At Spring Budget 2023, the UK Government (HMG) announced the trailblazer devolution deals with the MCAs and set out its commitment to implement single departmental style settlements ('single settlements') for the MCAs at the next Spending Review (SR). The Single Settlements will

reform the way HMG provides grant funding to the MCAs, replacing multiple different funding streams with a single allocation. The goal is to increase the MCAs autonomy, ability to prioritise decisions locally, and ability to reprioritise across its own budgets. In November 2023, HM

Treasury published a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) setting out the principles under which the single settlements with the MCAs will be agreed and implemented. A further annex was then published at Spring Budget 2024.

The main objective of the contract is to produce readiness for settlement via readiness checks to confirm that MCAs can perform the required new functions or have robust plans that will enable them to be performed at the appropriate time.

Services to be provided include, but are not limited to:

• Developing Readiness Checks Criteria
• Designing the approach to gathering the information relevant to MCA readiness, working with the MCAs
• Developing a report

The contract duration will be for a period of 12 weeks. Start date TBC.