Beds CC update on January 2008 prospectus

Bedfordshire County Council received approval for its 2008-2011 Co-Financing Plan from Grovernment Office for the East of England on Monday 14th January 2008.

The Prospectus was launched at an event co-hosted by Bedfordshire County Council and Luton Borough Council on the 29th January and the deadline for the receipt of tenders closed at noon on the 3rd April 2008. 

In total 67 tenders were received:-
7 covered both Bedfordshire & Luton
35 covered Bedfordshire only, and
25 covered Luton only.

Following the close of the April 2008 tender round, and special consent having been received on July 16^th 2008 to novate the contracts to the new Unitary, Central Bedfordshire,10 contracts have been agreed, for 9 activities. Post tender negotiations have now been completed and Service Level Agreements signed for 9 contracts.  Activity has commenced, mostly from August 1st.   

In August the Council was offered additional funding as a consequence of the weakening value of sterling against the Euro. This, together with funds not taken up in the first tender round will generate a new Prospectus. It is hoped that this will be published in early November 2008, providing £737,000 in Priority 1 and £195,000 in Priority 2 to add to our existing Programme Activity. The new funding will provide a mix of activity - some with existing suppliers and also new activity to the same client groups in almost equal measure between NEETS (not in education, employment or training) and Employability.  Work is still ongoing on how we will tender for activity in Priority 2, as this is our first entry into that Priority.

A list of the successful tenderers follows and more detail on the individual 9 projects is available on the Project List| (opens in new window) page.