Newcastle City Council are seeking to publish 3 tender opportunities (5 contracts) that will provide community opportunities services across the City of Newcastle upon Tyne. The contract term will be 6 years (3 years with 3 x 12-month options to extend) to commence on 1.12.2019.

Opportunity 1: Community Opportunities Support Services — Citywide;

Opportunity 2: Community Service (Chain Reaction) — Citywide;

Opportunity 3: Base Service — North, East, West (3 x contracts available).

Organisations should pay particular attention to the arrangements for expressing interest in more than 1 of the opportunities highlighted in the service specification and instructions to tender.

The Council recognises from discussion with local providers that infrastructure support is required to deliver joined-up provisions across the City and to stimulate and support local growth and self-help. To assist this process the Council wishes to commission a single provider to oversee collaborative arrangements and quality issues within the base and community service (Chain Reaction) Services and support relationships with other non-commissioned local community provisions in each zone. This infrastructure support will be known as the community opportunities support service.

The Council wishes to build on the success of existing provisions and further develop localised community support with greater reach, through reshaping existing services to provide an enhanced local continuum of support. The Council wishes to achieve this by bringing together the best current practice through the development the chain reaction and lunch links services.

This new chain reaction service is a citywide offer which will include the lunch links service, the successful provider will be expected to work with the 3 geographically zoned community opportunities – base service providers to develop 3 community Hives which have a focus on place-based services. It is expected that successful providers will establish good working relationships and care pathways with providers in their zone and other zones, particularly where there is commonality of service user.

The Council wishes to build on the success of existing provisions and further develop localised community support with greater reach, through reshaping existing services to provide an enhanced local continuum of support. The Council wishes to achieve this by bringing together the best current practice through the development of 3 community Hives. These Hives will consist of 1 base service and the chain reaction service per zone. The Hives will be split into 3 geographic zones (North, East and West).