The ESFA is looking to award a single supplier or consortium to deliver the ASK programme for the North Region. The ESFA wants to encourage applications from a range of providers to promote evidence-based innovation and support the development of a sustainable market.

The ASK Programme aims to assist schools with their statutory duty to provide impartial careers advice and guidance to young people by providing them with a bespoke package of comprehensive information about apprenticeships.

Schools can access a variety of support including student awareness sessions, CPD for teachers, parent events and live broadcasts. The ASK Programme supports the Apprenticeship reform programme, benefits realisation strategy and communications objectives through the Fire it Up campaign. It is about improving awareness and boosting perceptions of apprenticeships, driving growth in applications and supporting progression and increasing 16-18 starts.

This is the first time that the programme has included KS3, for those students in year 7, 8, 9 as historically the ASK Programme has been for years 10, 11 and 12 and 13.

There are 3 strands to the wider ASK Programme and all are essential to the delivery of the ASK Programme:

— ASK service delivery programme (the ASK Services to which this procurement refers) — being the delivery partners contracted to deliver face to face sessions to students, teachers and parents,

— amazing apprenticeships — includes the schools' resources portal, ASK CRM system, Young Apprenticeship Ambassador Network (YAAN) portal, Vacancy Snapshot, Schools Workforce Development.

Note: Bidders will be expected to work with the Amazing Apprenticeships in order to deliver the ASK delivery programme — further information can be found at Amazing Apprenticeships,

— learn live — live broadcasts to showcase employer apprenticeship programmes with the opportunity for teachers and students to ask questions in a live Q&A session (together being the ASK Programme).

Evaluation has shown that 98 % of schools would recommend the ASK Programme to other schools and colleges. 79 % of teachers rated sessions as being an excellent way of raising knowledge and awareness of apprenticeships. We would expect to maintain these figures as a minimum and drive up performance in all regions.

Over 1 600 apprenticeship champions have been signed up through the ASK. These apprenticeship champions are not contractor staff, but work as advocates within their school/organisation in promoting apprenticeships to students and their peers. More information on apprenticeship champions can be found on the Amazing Apprenticeships website.