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Ambitious Essex Enhanced Growth Hub

Tender Overview

ORGANIZATION

Essex County Council

LOCATION

Essex, United Kingdom

VALUE

£1,368,000

DEADLINE

February 02, 2026 at 12:00

CATEGORY

Other

CPV CODE

66000000

REFERENCE

001232-2026

Project Timeline

Contact Information

View Original

Original Tender Description

Essex County Council (ECC) currently delivers business support through two main programmes: the Ambitious Essex Growth Hub, funded by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), and Backing Essex Business, funded by ECC. While both services have been effective in supporting businesses across the county, feedback from the business community has consistently highlighted challenges in navigating the support landscape and identifying the most appropriate service for their needs. With both contracts due to expire on 31st March 2026, ECC is taking the opportunity to reprocure and consolidate these services into a single, streamlined business support offer. This new service will be designed to simplify access for businesses, adapt to business needs, remove duplication, and deliver improved value for money.
⚠️

MANDATORY EXCLUSION GROUNDS

  • No specific mandatory exclusion grounds are explicitly stated in the provided information.

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS

  • No specific eligibility requirements (e.g., legal form, registrations, licenses) are explicitly stated in the provided information.
🔧

TECHNICAL CAPABILITY REQUIREMENTS

  • Deliver a consolidated, single, and streamlined business support offer.
  • Design the service to simplify access for businesses.
  • Design the service to adapt to business needs.
  • Design the service to remove duplication between existing services (Ambitious Essex Growth Hub and Backing Essex Business).
  • Design the service to deliver improved value for money.
  • Provide business support across Essex County.
  • Be operational and ready to deliver services from April 2026.
  • Address and resolve challenges businesses face in navigating the support landscape and identifying the most appropriate service.
  • Be capable of delivering support previously covered by the DBT-funded Ambitious Essex Growth Hub and the ECC-funded Backing Essex Business programmes.
💰

FINANCIAL REQUIREMENTS

  • Be capable of delivering a service with an estimated contract value of 1,368,000.0 EUR (approximately £1.14 million).
📋

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

  • Submit the bid by the deadline: 2026-02-02 12:00:00.
  • Participate in an Open procurement process.

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PDF
Official PDF Version
PDF001232-2026_official.pdf
Summary:
Essex County Council is seeking bids for a consolidated "Ambitious Essex Enhanced Growth Hub" service to provide streamlined business support across the county, with an estimated value of £1.14 million for a three-year contract from April 2026.

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67
Good

Tender Quality Score

This tender aims to consolidate business support services but suffers from a severe lack of detailed documentation, making it difficult for potential bidders to prepare comprehensive proposals and raising significant concerns about transparency and fairness.

Score Breakdown

Legal Compliance100/100

The tender appears to follow an Open procedure, which is generally compliant. However, the absence of explicit mandatory exclusion grounds, eligibility requirements, and detailed evaluation criteria in the provided extract is a significant omission that could lead to legal challenges regarding transparency and equal treatment.

Absence of explicit mandatory exclusion grounds
Absence of explicit eligibility requirements
Clarity40/100

While the objective of the tender (consolidating services, simplifying access, removing duplication) is clear from the description, the requirements for achieving this are high-level and lack specific detail. This creates ambiguity for bidders on what exactly needs to be proposed and how it will be assessed.

High-level technical requirements lacking specific detail
Ambiguity regarding expected service delivery model
Completeness83/100

This tender is critically incomplete due to the absence of any attached documents, detailed eligibility criteria, specific mandatory exclusion grounds, and crucially, evaluation criteria. Bidders cannot prepare a proper submission based solely on the provided extract.

No tender documents attached
Missing detailed eligibility criteria
Fairness60/100

The lack of detailed requirements and evaluation criteria creates a significant risk to fairness. Without clear rules for assessment, the contracting authority has excessive discretion, potentially leading to unequal treatment of bidders. The high-level requirements could also implicitly favor incumbents or those with prior knowledge.

Absence of clear evaluation criteria compromises equal treatment
High-level requirements may implicitly favor incumbent providers
Practicality40/100

From a bidder's perspective, it is highly impractical to prepare a competitive and compliant bid without any tender documents, detailed specifications, or evaluation criteria. From the contracting authority's perspective, evaluating bids based on such limited information would be challenging and subjective.

Impractical for bidders to prepare comprehensive proposals without full documentation
Challenges for the contracting authority to objectively evaluate bids
Data Consistency100/100

The provided data is internally consistent (e.g., title matches description, value is stated). However, the lack of data (e.g., no NUTS code, no characteristics) means there's less to check for consistency against.

NUTS code missing
Sustainability0/100

The provided information does not include any specific requirements or considerations related to environmental, social, or economic sustainability. This is a missed opportunity for the contracting authority.

No explicit green procurement criteria
No explicit social criteria

Strengths

Clear objective and description of the need for consolidated services
Utilizes an Open procedure, promoting broad competition
Estimated contract value and duration are clearly provided
Aims for efficiency and improved value for money through consolidation

Concerns

Complete absence of any tender documents
Missing detailed eligibility and mandatory exclusion grounds
Crucial lack of evaluation criteria for bid assessment
High-level, non-specific technical requirements leading to ambiguity
Significant risk of unfairness and lack of transparency due to missing details

Recommendations

1. Immediately publish full tender documentation, including detailed specifications, terms and conditions, and evaluation criteria.
2. Clearly define all mandatory exclusion grounds and eligibility requirements to ensure legal compliance and fairness.
3. Provide specific, measurable technical requirements and performance indicators to ensure clarity and comparability of bids.

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B
Tender Quality Score
67/ 100 · Good

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