Newcastle City Council (‘the Lead Authority’) is acting as the lead authority on behalf of the North East Procurement Organisation (NEPO) and its member authorities, in respect of the procurement of a bespoke flexible procurement solution (FPS) known as a flexible procurement agreement (the Contract) for provision of independent fostering services for looked after children.

Placements in independent foster care services. The child/young person may or may not be subject of a care order (section 31 of the Children 1989) and in which case the local authority will have parental responsibility or the local authority is satisfied that the child/young person is in need of accommodation under (section 20 of the Children Act 1989), in which case the local authority will not have parental responsibility for the child/young person. An unlimited number of independent fostering agencies will be appointed to the solution from across the UK but it is anticipated that most placements will be made in the North of England.

The opportunity can be accessed via the NEPO eTender system. Suppliers wishing to be considered for this flexible procurement agreement must register their expression of interest and submit a tender through the NEPO eTender system. If not already registered, tenderers should register on the NEPO eTender system at https://procontract.due-north.com/register?openform

Tenders must be submitted using the link above. Tenders submitted via postal or email methods will not be accepted. If you require time-critical assistance on submitting your tender please contact the system support team on 0330 0050352. For non-time critical issues, such as passwords, general account queries and location of information, etc. please contact proactis supplier support helpdesk ticketing system (http://proactis.kayako.com) and select ProContract V3 support. You will then need to log in or submit a ticket to register your issue. Alternatively, you can email ProContractSuppliers@proactis.com this will automatically log a support ticket on the proactis supplier support helpdesk. Successful suppliers will enter into a flexible procurement agreement in a form which is set out in the procurement documents. The lead authority does not give any guarantee and/or warrant the actual value of the goods/works/services (if any)which will be placed with the successful suppliers by any participating authorities using the flexible procurement agreement pursuant to this process and accepts no liability thereof.