The client, a well-established care company offering domiciliary care in multiple locations across the UK, was looking to expand their service provision into Wales. As it was their first time bidding for a Welsh tender, they required additional bid management support and advice around the nuances of public sector procurement in Wales.
The contracting authority was a special purpose vehicle comprising multiple local councils and integrated commissioning boards, led by Denbighshire County Council.
Project overview
In total, our scope comprised 17,775 words divided across 23 separate quality responses and method statements, which is significantly larger than the average bid. The word limits for quality responses varied widely, with some requiring only 200 words of brief narrative and others spanning 2,000 words for more detailed, technical responses for delivering domiciliary care services. Topics included:
- Experience delivering public services in Wales and ensuring the requirements of Welsh speakers are met in accordance with Welsh language legislation
- Ensuring the wellbeing of staff engaged in service provision, including how you support workers from overseas
- Training provided to managers and staff, alongside arrangements for assessing ongoing competence in use of lifting equipment
- Business continuity and disaster recovery in the event of staff unavailability, travel disruption, ICT failure and financial unsustainability
- Evidencing outcomes achieved when commissioned to provide a package of care to service users
- Lot-specific response regarding complex domiciliary care and approaches to successfully providing care and support for individuals with complex and substantial needs
- A description of how community benefit initiatives will be achieved and how they will support communities in line with the identified priorities.
Given the promptness in receiving the documents and accepting our quotation, we were able to commence the project quickly, more than four weeks before the final submission deadline.
-
Geographical region:
Wales
-
Output:
17,775 words across 23 responses and method statements
-
Submission:
Electronic and portal-based
-
Outcome:
Successful
Main challenges
Although our client was highly experienced and well-versed in bidding for and acquiring public sector work, some project-specific challenges included:
- Supporting our client in complying with legislation specific to Wales, such as requirements for Welsh language provision and community benefits
- Writing to highly varied word limits, with some responses requiring a top-level overview whilst others would address multiple detailed topics
- Providing wider bid management support for a complex submission with multiple attachments and appendices, necessitating close document control.
Given his experience writing similar submissions – including domiciliary care submissions for Manchester City Council, Gateshead Council and London boroughs – and having supported the client on previous occasions, Robert Mudd was assigned as the lead bid writer for this project, with Sylvia Clydesdale working in support given the size of the submission.
Following an initial review of the specification and tender documents, Robert scheduled the information-gathering call with our client via Microsoft Teams, to discuss the opportunity and questions forming our scope in detail.
Delivery
Due to the size of the submission, Rob split discussions into two separate information-gathering calls, ensuring the client was not overburdened with having to provide all the required information at once. Both Rob and Sylvia participated in the client interview, asking open-ended questions to ensure the required information was captured in sufficient detail.
Responses then progressed through our ISO 9001:2015-certified quality management system in accordance with the following steps:
- Quality responses were drafted in accordance with information from the client, contract specification and other documents in the tender pack – for instance, community benefits guidance
- Our dedicated health and social care quality reviewer Hannah Robinson reviewed responses for compliance with the specification, wording of the question, and overall persuasiveness and ‘flow’, ensuring the strongest possible response
- All narrative responses were proofread by one of our CIEP-accredited external proofreading team, supporting a polished and professional final version
- Responses were shared with the client in small batches as and when they were completed, for them to review, address a small number of comments and placeholders and suggest further content.
We were able to return the finalised version of all responses to the client three weeks in advance of the submission, leaving sufficient time for them to review all content and ensure they were happy with the bid. Rob also signposted our client to helpful tools and guidance to complete a carbon reduction plan, which was a mandatory requirement for the tender.
Outcome
In April 2025, we received notification that the client had been successful in their submission, allowing them to expand their business into a new geographic region. The client thanked us for our bid management support, and we have since supported them with further tender submissions.
To learn how we can support your business to acquire domiciliary care contracts, contact us today at info@executivecompass.co.uk or via telephone on 0800 612 5563.