ADD2685 Skills for Londoners Capital Fund Round 3 – Bid scoring contract

1.1    Skills for Londoners Capital Fund (SfLCF) launched in April 2017 with a total of £114m available for investment in the estate and equipment of London's skills providers. It supports the delivery of high-quality skills that employers need, in buildings that are inspiring and fit-for-purpose and reflect the working environments, collaborative spaces and the new ways of working of industry’s workplaces and spaces.   
1.2    Round 1, held in 2017-18, awarded £32m to 62 projects through the main fund, the Small Projects and Equipment Fund and the Development Support Fund. In April 2019 as part of SfLCF Round 2, the LEAP Investment Committee awarded 17 projects £57.6m funding including £7.2m from the Mayor’s Construction Academy (MCA) fund. In 2020, £12.7m was committed to 14 existing projects in need of Covid-19 contingency funding and £10.1m of Emergency Covid-19 Recovery Support Funding (ERSF) to 90 projects.  
1.3    The Greater London Authority (GLA) established a procurement framework for the supply of services “to support the grant competition, application and grant award processes associated with the Skills and Employment Unit’s programmes” in February 2023 (contract reference GLA 82174 (“Administration of Grant Application processes for Jobs and Skills for Londoners Grants”). TfL’s procurement team led the process of procuring suppliers to be included on the framework contract, and only one bid was received. The bidder’s tender was assessed as meeting the requirements and the bidder (BidRight) was offered a contract.   
1.4    SfLCF Round 3 launched in October 2023 and will close on 15 November 2023. It is estimated that 40-60 applications will be submitted. The applications will be assessed in November-December 2023. It is proposed that expenditure of up to £50,000 is approved for the assessment, scoring and moderation of applications to Round 3 of the SfLCF by BidRight. 
 

2.1    Officers are seeking approval to enter into a Call Off Agreement with BidRight for the assessment, scoring and moderation of applications to Round 3 of the SfLCF to support the grant award process for the fund.  
2.2    A quote was sought from BidRight in accordance with the framework contract to score applications in accordance with the process set out in the SfLCF Round 3 Prospectus. Total expenditure will depend on how many applications are submitted and is therefore variable as set out in BidRight’s pricing schedule. Example costs based on the GLA receiving 61-70 applications are set out here with a maximum expenditure of £45,997. The cost per bid is similar to that previously agreed for BidRight’s scoring and assessment of applications to recent skills revenue programmes. 
2.3    Officers are recommending that BidRight’s quote for scoring applications to SfLCF Round 3 is accepted and a contract is awarded to BidRight to supply scoring and moderation services for the SfLCF Round 3 programme, under the GLA procurement framework 82174 (“Administration of Grant Application processes for Jobs and Skills for Londoners Grants”).     
 

3.1    Section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010 provides that, in the exercise of their functions, public authorities, of whom the Mayor is one, must have due regard to the need to:   
•    eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act 2010  
•    advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it  
•    foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.  
3.2    Relevant protected characteristics are age, disability, gender re-assignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.  
3.3    The SfLCF Round 3 Equalities Impact Assessment considers the impacts of the programme on people in equality groups (Londoners who share protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 or are part of other disadvantaged groups) and sets out appropriate mitigations to reduce any barriers and target support for underrepresented groups.  
3.4    The scoring process includes assessment of the impact of the proposed projects on underrepresented groups, along with a requirement for BidRight’s scorers to note that Equality, Diversity and Inclusion has been considered throughout the proposal. BidRight have also been informed that scorers should be representative of London’s diversity and be from diverse backgrounds. 
 

Risks and issues 
4.1    There is a risk that significantly more than 70 applications are received for the fund which would necessitate an increase in contract value, further approvals at Executive Director level and potentially a longer scoring period which could delay the programme.  
4.2    Officers are monitoring the number of applications in draft, which was below 60 less than one week before the application deadline. It is anticipated that not all draft applications will be submitted and that some applications may fail eligibility checks, so it is probable that fewer than 60 applications will need to be scored. BidRight have also noted in the Call off Contract that they have additional resources to support scoring if required.  
Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities 
4.3    The SfLCF programme is closely linked to Mayoral strategies and priorities as set out in MD2919 where the third round of the fund was approved. In particular, the programme supports the Mayor’s Skills Academies Programme by making funding available to skills providers to enable new or improved learning provision across the programme's priority sectors.  
Data protection 
4.4    Applicants have been informed via the prospectus that external scorers may be involved in scoring their applications. Officers are working with BidRight to ensure that appropriate data protection processes are in place.  
Conflicts of interest 
4.5    There are no conflicts of interest to note for any of those involved in the drafting or clearance of the decision. 

5.1    The Skills for Londoners Capital Fund (SfLCF) programme under cover of Mayoral Decision (MD)2142) approved £5m of revenue funding contained within the overall SfLCF to cover associated revenue costs.  
5.2    This decision requests approval for expenditure of up to £50,000 funding from the £5m of revenue to cover the cost of assessment, scoring and moderation of applications to the third round of the Skills for Londoners Capital Fund (SfLCF).  
5.3    This expenditure of £50,000 will be funded from the Skills for Londoners Capital Fund revenue programme budget in the 2023-24 financial year. 
 

6.1    Next steps are set out in the table below: