Closed Framework for Research and Evaluation Services
Estimated value
£400k
Awarded value
—
Suppliers
0
Lots
1
Published
16 Dec 2025
Description
The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust ("the Trust") is running a procurement process to establish a closed Framework of suitably qualified Suppliers for the provision of research and evaluation services to support the Trust's research, evidence, policy, and decision-making needs. The Framework is intended to appoint up to five (5) organisations capable of delivering high-quality research, evaluation and related services. Call-Off Contracts will then be awarded under the Framework for specific projects. Bidders must demonstrate their ability to deliver all core elements of the Service Specification (included in the ITT document) and to respond flexibly to a range of Call-Off requirements over the life of the Framework, which will be for a period of four (4) years.
Scope
- Reference
- ocds-h6vhtk-05f70b
- Total value
- £400,000 excluding VAT£500,000 including VATAbove the relevant threshold
- Commercial tool
- Standalone contract
- Contract dates
- 23 Feb 2026 to 22 Feb 2030
- Main category
- services
- 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
- Enquiry deadline
- 16 Jan 2026, 12:00 pm
- Submission deadline
- 23 Jan 2026, 12:00 pm
- Submission address
- Tenders shall be submitted via tenders@covenantfund.org.uk by answering all of the required questions in the ITT document and attaching any necessary documents as instructed. More information on the required form and structure of Tenders is provided alongside the relevant questions in the ITT.
- Electronic submission
- No
- Procedure
- Open procedure