The Department for Education (DfE) and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Institute) are seeking bidders to support ongoing work on our ambitious technical education reforms.

This early engagement notice is not a call for competition and is a scoping exercise to determine whether the Department goes to market and is subject to Departmental governance controls.

This potential procurement exercise is to ensure that all our reform programmes have access to expert specialist advice and guidance needed to make them high quality, valuable to an employer-led system, and provide a world-class technical education system to students on behalf of DfE and the Institute.

We recognised that the work within the whole of the contract will cut across a wide range of policy areas in DfE and the Institute.

Bidders will not be expected to have knowledge of all the areas as teach-ins will be provided.

However, it will be beneficial for bidders to have good working knowledge of some of the areas listed below.

The reform programme areas that you will be expected to work on are, but not limited to: Apprenticeships: Following the Richard Review, reforms to the Apprenticeship programme have moved Apprenticeships from frameworks to standards.

The introduction of Occupational maps, with clearly identified technical routes, form a central part of the Department's reforms to all post-16 technical education.

Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs): Following the 2020 Higher Technical Education Reform consultation, a new, opt-in, HTQs approvals process has been launched, led by the Institute.

The aim is to address the low uptake of high-quality qualifications at levels 4 and 5 and to better meet employer needs.

Post-16 Qualifications Review: Following the direction from the Wolf Review; the Sainsbury Panel's report, and the removal of qualifications from performance tables, the government introduced an ambitious plan to ensure that the Post-16 qualifications landscape is fit for purpose.

This includes a review of ESOL qualifications at level 2 below and English and maths and digital "steppingstone" qualifications at level 1 and below.

T Levels: In the reforms outlined in the Post-16 Skills plan, the Government accepted all the recommendations of Lord Sainsbury's report on Technical Education.

Subsequently, a programme to develop new T Levels was launched, phased over four years, with the first courses introduced in September 2020.

To support young people's progression to T Levels, new T Level Transition programmes are being developed, delivery will be phased to align with the introduction of T Levels.