Project Overview
In October 2025 we were approached by a care company who were made aware of a last-minute call-off contract for Wolverhampton City Council, to deliver supported living services. The client approached us for short-notice support, and our team were able to accommodate quickly by assigning two of our bid writers to the project.
Lead by bid writer Sylvia Clydesdale, who has successfully supported similar large care frameworks for Denbighshire County Council and the London Borough of Haringey, this project consisted of:
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Geographical Region:
West Midlands
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Output:
3,000 words across six questions.
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Weighting:
100% quality (mini competition)
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Submission :
Electronic and portal-based
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Outcome:
Outstanding
Initially, Sylvia held an information gathering meeting virtually via MS Teams with the client to discuss topics such as their staffing structure and plans to mobilise and deliver the contract, which were themes of the quality responses issued by Wolverhampton City Council. After these narrative questions had been initially drafted by Sylvia and Rob, they progressed through our ISO 9001:2015-certified quality management system in accordance with the following steps:
- Due to the urgency of the responses needed, Bid Manager Craig Sutch reviewed the responses internally, checking the wording of the question against the narrative, additionally assessing top-scoring factors such as persuasiveness, flow and overall presentation.
- All narrative responses were proofread by our CIEP-accredited external proofreading team, supporting a polished and professional final version.
- Proofread documents were then sent to the client by Sylvia, who amended the narrative responses based on the client’s preferences, to refine and tailor the submission exactly to their business methodology.
Main challenges
Initially, the council had not released specific word counts for the tender responses and 48 hours before the deadline the quoted word counts doubled, following authority confirmation of the official word counts, increasing our scope and the amount of writing needed.
Although this needed to be completed within a very tight turnaround, due to having a team of 15 directly employed bid writers, we were flexible and accommodated this last-minute increase in the total word count, with senior bid writer Rob supporting with the writing of the tender. Being responsive in this way meant that the writing was still completed within one working day as scheduled. The tender required strict project management from our side to ensure it remained on track, utilising our bid management matrix and good communication between the two bid writers and the client.
Building client relationships
The client received excellent client management, with an information gathering call held less than 24 hours after enquiry about support with the tender. The client also benefitted from continuous support from Sylvia, who dynamically completed client amends on the responses until the day of submission.
During a call with bid manager Craig, the client remarked that they were impressed with the quality of the tender responses and saw the benefit of using our service in comparison to completing them in-house, which they had been doing thus far. We look forward to supporting this client with future bids.
To discuss how we can support your business to win more health and social care contracts, contact us today at info@executivecompass.co.uk or complete our free 30-minute consultation form.