22 077 Holiday Activities & Food Programme

Cheshire East Council is using the Light Touch Regime to source a number of providers to deliver a holiday activities scheme within easy access of families currently in receipt of Free School Meals in line with DfE (Department for Education), guidelines for this funding. The criteria of the DfE funding must be met by a suitable range of providers and the activities sessions must run for a minimum of 4 hours. Providers should provide a hot meal which could necessitate the use of sub-contracting. The DfE initiative enables Councils to coordinate a programme that provides eligible young people between the ages of 4 - 16 and up to age 25 if SEND applies, to receive healthy food and enriching activities during the Easter, summer and winter school holidays. The contract term will be for 15 months initially, with the option to extend by up to 12 months. All services will be operational from school holidays December 2022. The optional extension from 1st April 2024 - 31st March 2025 will be at the sole discretion of the Council, it will also depend on availability of continued funding. This opportunity is suitable for SME and VCSFE organisation (i.e. small - medium and the voluntary - charity, faith section). For the avoidance of doubt, the Contracting Authority points out that no weight will be attached to whether or not an economic operator is an SME/VCSFE organisation when selecting economic operators to submit tenders or in assessing the most economically advantageous tender.