Invitation to Tender for Closed Framework for Research and Evaluation Services
ARMED FORCES COVENANT FUND TRUSTEE LIMITEDcontractFind a Tender ↗Ref ocds-h6vhtk-05f70bProcurement Act 2023SME suitableVCSE suitablepending
Estimated value
—
Awarded value
£2.0m
Awarded 04 Feb 2026
Suppliers
5
5 SME
Lots
1
5 awarded
Published
11 Feb 2026
Description
Invitation to Tender for Closed Framework for Research and Evaluation Services text
Scope
- Reference
- 2025-000007
- Commercial tool
- Standalone contract
- Contract dates
- 23 Feb 2026 to 22 Feb 2030
- CPV classifications
- 73210000
- Contract locations
- UK, United Kingdom
- Particular suitability
- Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)Voluntary, community and social enterprises (VCSE)
Award criteria
Criteria the buyer will use to evaluate bids.
| Name | Description | Type | Weighting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relevant experience and capabilities | Please set out your organisation's experience of delivering services of the type and scale envisaged under this framework, as outlined in the Service Specification, over the last three years. Provide up to three examples of previous relevant projects. | quality | 30.00% |
| Team capacity and specialist expertise | Please provide details of your organisational capacity and key personnel relevant to this framework and the Service Specification. Outline the typical size and composition of your research and evaluation team (roles, FTEs). Provide short profiles of the core team who would lead and deliver work under this framework, highlighting experience with research and evaluation in the armed forces community or similar contexts. Explain how you will ensure continuity of personnel and manage peaks in demand across multiple Call-Offs. | quality | 30.00% |
| Methodological approach | Describe your organisation's standard approaches to designing impact and economic evaluations of grant-funded programmes, conducting evidence reviews and mapping the needs of specific communities, as outlined in the Service Specification. Explain how you select and justify methods (qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods), ensure data quality, and manage bias and limitations. | quality | 10.00% |
| Quality assurance | Provide an overview of your internal quality assurance processes for research and evaluation outputs (e.g. peer review, sign-off). | quality | 10.00% |
| Engagement, ethics and safeguarding | Describe your approach to engaging with members of the armed forces community in research and evaluation activities, including veterans, serving personnel, families and other groups who may be vulnerable or have experienced trauma. Explain your arrangements for research ethics, informed consent, confidentiality, data protection, and safeguarding, including how you would manage distress or risk during fieldwork. Provide examples of how you have adapted methods to be inclusive and safe for participants. | quality | 10.00% |
| Rate Card/Commercial | The Rate Card (template) calculates the day rates for each member of the team across a total number of days working on a hypothetical project. As not all of these roles will be relevant for every bidder, the average cost across the team (total overall cost ÷ number of members in the team) will be used to score the commercial criteria. | price | 10.00% |
Submission & procedure
- Procedure
- Open procedure
Award details· 5 awards
Awarded supplier(s), contract period and value as published in the award notice.
Awarded value
£400k
Award date
04 Feb 2026
Contract start
23 Feb 2026
Contract end
22 Feb 2030
Awarded to