The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Cleveland is committed to playing a key role to raise awareness of and to seek intelligence among agencies and communities to tackle Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery.
This commitment is evidenced in the 2016-2020 Police and Crime Plan. It is also a Home Office and Cleveland Police priority.
The threat which this hidden crime poses to our communities is real and emerging as evidenced by an increasing number of criminal investigations and National Referral Mechanism (NRM) referrals made to the National Crime Agency (NCA). Cleveland Police completed a review of Modern Slavery in May 2017, which found that similar to the national approach, there is evidence that multi-agency Anti-Slavery Networks have a positive impact on combatting and preventing Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. Having such networks in place is
recognised as good practice.
Therefore, in support of this evidence, the PCC jointly with Cleveland Police has commissioned the development and delivery of a Cleveland-wide Anti-Slavery Network. The service specification can be found attached.
In December 2017, an advertisement was placed on the Bluelight E-tendering system inviting suppliers to bid for the service.
Although the value was below the Contract Standing Orders threshold for tenders of £50,000, a decision was made to open up the opportunity to the market, as the market was unknown.
An open tender was carried out using EU Supply as the tender portal, advertising the contract in Contract Finder and OJEU as per the Public Procurement Regulations 2015.
Four bids were received by the closing date. However, all four were over budget. Bidders were provided clarification on the budget and asked to establish what they could achieve within the budget. All bids came back within budget.
In addition to a number of mandatory pass/fail questions such as mandatory/discretionary exclusion/financial viability/ Insurance, the evaluation criterion was 45% quality and service delivery and 55% price.
The evaluation team scored bids and case studies in accordance with the evaluation criteria issued with the bid documents.
The outcome of the evaluation process was as follows:
- Bidder 1 – 71.5%
- Bidder 2 – 66.18%
- Bidder 3 – 73.84%
- Bidder 4 – 54.52%
Bidder 3’s price submission was in line with the financial envelope and was the most economically advantageous tender.
Acceptance of the preferred bidder has been approved in line with the current Contract Standing Orders.
However, the award of the contract has been published as it was agreed to be of public interest.
The network will be tasked with developing a Cleveland-wide Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery strategy and multi-agency action plan to ensure victims are fully supported and offenders are brought to justice.
Decision DRF-66656. Funding for Cleveland Anti-Trafficking Network (application, 232kB)