Decision Maker: Assistant Chief Executive - HR & Business Support
Decision status: Recommendations Approved
Is Key decision?: No
Is subject to call in?: No
To procure an Employee Assistance Programme
(EAP) that provides confidential support services on demand and
“in the moment” support, free of charge to the
employees of all service users. The EAP will emphasise employee
work performance as core to the service and be proactive in helping
individuals with their issues, before they might develop into more
complex situations, or mental health problems. 1.4. The contract is
for a period of 2 years, with an option to extend for a further
period of 1 year (2+1). The contract start date is 01 April 2022
with Health Assured the current provider and represents the third
successive tendering of this contract awarded to them.
Health Assured were the only supplier to bid
for the contract and their quality submission provided good
evidence both of which met with the brief to provide a description
of the service and the level of activity provided and how they
believe this demonstrates your technical and professional ability
to meet our requirements.
We used the YPO framework for this procurement
exercise as an alternative to an open bid in order to secure best
value for the Council. None of the other three suppliers bid and
neither did they provide any feedback as to why they did not
submit. We instructed the further competition coordinator to make
enquires as to why not although no reply was received. We
discounted the option of not awarding the bid to the one supplier
on two counts. Count One: at the stage considered the remaining
time to finalise any re procurement exercise was insufficient to
meet service deadlines for buyback. Count Two: as the evaluation of
the tender was so strong and covered the key requirements with a
good level of detail and in some cases demonstrating an excellent
understanding of the requirements with additional detail and
supporting evidence.
Publication date: 23/08/2021
Date of decision: 15/08/2021