Early engagement and soft market testing - DWP Water Hygiene Risk Assessment Services

DWP is engaging with the market early and prior to starting a procurement exercise, in order to establish the following:

• If there is a sufficient supplier base to ensure robust competition?
• What the appetite is amongst suppliers to provide these services to DWP?
• How attractive is the proposed contract to suppliers?
• Will suppliers have the capacity to submit a tender and/or are they planning to submit tenders for similar services to other Contracting Authorities in 2023/4?
• Are there any new market or technological developments relating to this type of contract that might inform the specification?
• What are common SLAs/ KPIs used in the market for this type of contract?

Additional information:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is investigating a potential future exercise to procure Water Hygiene and Risk Assessment services across the DWP Estate. This comprises of c. 1000 offices across England, Scotland and Wales.

DWP is seeking an insight from market operators to assess market suitability, support the DWP's understanding of the available services, and identify market innovations prior to publishing our requirements.

To support this the Department is issuing a Request for Information (RFI) attached to this PIN which outlines the potential requirement in more detail, proposed timelines and also looks to secure valuable feedback from the market.

We invite market operators to complete the attached questionnaire and return to …@dwp.gov.uk by 22/9/2023. This market feedback will inform our requirements.

Market operators should be aware DWP is not committed to or guarantees a procurement at this stage. DWP reserves the right to withdraw or amend the intentions of this Prior Information Notice at any time. Any costs incurred in participating in the pre-market engagement be borne by the market operator.

Please note that the Department for Work and Pensions uses e-tendering provided by bravosolutions. The full suite of documentation including specification and specific details relating to this procurement will be available here if we proceed to market.

If you are interested in this opportunity you will need to register for access to the system. If you are already registered, please check that your registration includes DWP in order to correctly receive the tender documents.

The link to register or make amendments is as follows: https://dwp.bravosolution.co.uk/. If you have any problems whilst registering, please contact the eProcurement helpdesk on 0800 368 4850 or email …@bravosolution.co.uk