UKSBS PR18079 Business Support Helpline

**Please note this is an award notice, not a call for competition** *Final date and time to submit RFI response was Monday 29th July 2019 at 14:00 DO NOT apply directly to the buyer All tender information MUST be submitted via CCS eSourcing Portal.* The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is seeking to procure government business support services for primarily Small to Medium size Enterprises (SMEs) in England: A Business Support Helpline; A database (Knowledge Bank) of business support schemes and advice in England; an Emergency Response Service capability.

The Authority holds a contract delivering the proposed services.

It is envisaged that the existing services will migrate to the new contract.

The Helpline forms a key part of the government's offer to SMEs, providing trusted information and sign-posting businesses to relevant support, to help businesses to start, grow and thrive.

It provides a channel for government to communicate with business, for example in the run up to EU exit.

It also offers emergency response capacity.

The service must be designed with flexibility to accommodate any changes required to reflect changes in policy.

The service must be able to flex capacity responsively to meet peaks in demand.

The service must be available and relevant to all entrepreneurs in England, including pre-start, start-up and existing businesses.

The service must provide capacity for at least 50,000 inbound contacts and at least 10,000 outbound in-depth business support calls per annum.

The Authority will look to increase annual contact rates above 2018 rates.

The service must maintain the Knowledge Bank, and the content of the Business Support Finder Tool on GOV.UK.

Contract award is anticipated to take place in early December 2019.

The services must be fully operational by 31st March 2020.

The initial Contract term is 27 months commencing 1 January 2020 (including 3 month mobilisation period).

The contract will be subject to a three-month notice period at any time.

The estimated total contract value is anticipated to be up to £8.35 million.

The contract value for Mobilisation period and the two-year contract (up to £2 million per annum excluding mobilisation costs) is estimated at £4.35m.

There will be an option to extend the contract for up to two further years to 2024 on an annual basis (up to £2m per annum; subject to additional spend approval).

There is an option to increase the contract value proportionately in line with demand as set out in the review clause within the contract documents, in the event of significant unanticipated additional demand resulting for example from economic shocks or changes in relationships with our international trading partners.

Mobilisation costs are subject to a £350k limit. *Please disregard any content in this notice that requests your organisation 'to apply directly to the buyer' as unfortunately this is a system generated error outside of the Contracting Authority's control