News & Blog

Check out this page to find out what we've been up to, hear our honest take on the state of play in commissioning and procurement, and to keep up to date with the latest developments at Candour Collaborations!

Transforming Rehabilitation Information Events for VCSE providers

Candour Collaborations,  ACEVO and NCVO have been awarded a grant from the Ministry of Justice to deliver a series of events to the VCSE sector to raise awareness and understanding of the Transforming Rehabilitation competition.

The series of events will run throughout the competition at a number of locations across the country and will cover everything from general information to in-depth sessions on TUPE implications (further details below). The events will be aimed at VCSE organisations wishing to participate in the competition and aim to present an honest view of the procurement process including the potential operational and commercial challenges.

Most of the events will be held on a regional basis and attendance will not be restricted by the region your organisation is based in, please attend the event which is most convenient to you. However, the Networking events will be held at Contract Package Area (CPA) level so we would ask that you only attend these events in the areas that you are interested in delivering in. These events will provide a forum for the shortlisted prime contractors in each CPA to introduce themselves to the VCSE sector.

Please see the links below for further details:

Big Society Capital publishes Justice Market Statement

Big Society Capital recently published their Justice Market Statement , setting out social investment options for primes and tier 1 and 2 providers interested in getting involved in the Transforming Rehabilitation procurement process. This is expected to kick off over the next couple of weeks, so we were interested to explore their ideas for supporting market engagement and participation.

In general, their Statement is short and sweet. However, one thing really caught our eye – as a ‘wholesaler’, BSC is only able to invest in ‘intermediaries’. This normally refers to social investment specialists such as Big Issue Invest and CAF Venturesome, but their current definition is pretty vague:  ‘organisations that sub-contract at least 50% of contract value to social sector organisations’ and ‘organisations that provide a range of services (e.g. performance management, contract management, negotiation support) for subcontractor social sector organisations’. Does this mean that, in principle, private sector primes could be backed by social investors?

We think that this relatively wide definition presents an excellent opportunity for new consortia and social primes to emerge as intermediaries, cutting out ‘middle man’ costs and additional rates of return on investment which we know to be prohibitive to organisations considering social investment. It could (and in our opinion, should) introduce a greater level of delivery-based expertise and operational understanding into the social investment market. Something that is sorely lacking right now. This can only be a good thing.

What are the other implications of BSC potentially opening up the market to new kinds of intermediary? Should private sector primes be able to access social investment if it is going to flow down into the smaller organisations that actually need it, or should they be willing to invest the required levels of capital directly? Let us know your take, via Contact Us, or get in touch directly.