Ambition for Ageing is a unique cross sector partnership of influential organisations, led by Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation (GMCVO), with the aim of developing creative approaches to reducing social isolation for older people in Greater Manchester. The programme is part of the Big Lottery’s national Ageing Better programme which is funding 14 programmes across England. The programme will work in 3 neighbourhoods in eight local authority areas within Greater Manchester.
As part of this programme, GMCVO will be commissioning Local Delivery Leads for each of the local authority areas. They will be responsible for the local management of the programme, engaging with communities and supporting older people to make positive changes to their local areas utilising a community development approach.
These organisations will support older people in the targeted neighbourhoods to volunteer as local ‘investigators’, uncovering and highlighting local assets. Local Delivery Leads will hold devolved budgets and older people themselves will decide where investments should be made.
The procurement has been split into 8 lots, one for each of the local authority areas. Potential applicants have the opportunity to bid for all or any combination of the 8 Lots, however successful applicants will only be awarded a maximum of 2 Lots as lead provider, but may feature as a sub-contractor in more than two successful bids. GMCVO does reserve the right in exceptional circumstances to award more than two lots to an Applicant, where, for example, there are no other viable bids in any particular lot other than that of an Applicant who has the highest ranking in two other lots. The reason for the 2 lot limit is to maximise the test & learn potential by commissioning a variety of approaches and minimising the risks associated with provider failure. The 8 Lots are;
Lot 1 — Bolton
Lot 2 — Bury
Lot 3 — Manchester
Lot 4 — Oldham
Lot 5 — Rochdale
Lot 6 — Salford
Lot 7 — Tameside
Lot 8 — Wigan
All the procurement documentation relating to this tender can be obtained from the GMCVO tender portal (further details on how to register and access the portal can be found in V1.3).