Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) will use Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS) RM6348 Adult Skills and Learning Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) for the procured element of its adult skills provision. This includes funding from the Adult Skills Fund, Free Courses for Jobs and Skills Bootcamps.

The Combined Authority has chosen this as its route to market due to the benefits it provides for both CPCA and suppliers. For CPCA, it frees up our limited resources, reduces procurement timescales, and enables us to operate more agilely to deliver adult skills.

For suppliers, it offers the following benefits:

• The DPS questionnaire removes the need to answer pre-qualification questions for each procurement, saving suppliers time.
• Buyers contact suppliers, removing the need to search for opportunities themselves.
• Suppliers are only invited to the call-off procurements relevant to them, enabled by the filtering system.
• The core contract terms are agreed upon by buyers and suppliers up front, removing the need to review different contracts for each procurement.
• Becoming appointed on the DPS enables suppliers to bid for additional work outside of the CPCA scope.
• The DPS enables CPCA to react more quickly to contract underspend and any additional funding, so we can run additional call offs to address it.

Only appointed suppliers on the Adult Skills and Learning DPS that also meet our essential requirements will be invited to bid for contracts.

Apply

We encourage interested suppliers to complete their application to join the RM6348 Adult Skills and Learning DPS by 29/11/2024 at the latest, with the aim of being appointed onto the DPS in time for us to start our call-off procurement in January 2025. We won’t be able to invite suppliers to bid who aren’t appointed by the time we start the procurement, so we urge you to apply as soon as possible.

Adult Skills and Learning DPS – CCS

To complete your application, you should be prepared to supply information on the minimum requirements.

Minimum requirements summary: 

•  Cyber Essentials basic certification – NCSC Cyber Essentials website
• Minimum insurance requirements:
  • Employer’s liability insurance of £5,000,000
  • Public liability insurance of £5,000,000
  • Professional indemnity insurance of £1,000,000
• Compliance with the Supplier Code of Conduct and Modern Slavery Act
• Pass a Financial Viability and Risk Assessment (FVRA)
• Provide a valid UK Provider Reference Number (UKPRN) from the UK Register of Learning Providers
• Agree to help contracted buyers achieve their social value objectives

Suppliers that don’t yet have Cyber Essentials (CE) certification can still apply to the DPS. You are recommended to begin the DPS application process whilst working towards the Cyber Essentials certification. Once the DPS application is submitted, suppliers’ financial viability risk assessments (FVRA) can be being processed whilst working towards CE. Once the application is processed and CE proof is provided, suppliers can be appointed.

For a list of supplier minimum requirements and instructions on how to apply to join the RM6348 Adult Skills and Learning DPS, download CCS’s quick supplier guide. For more information about the commercial agreement, you can watch the recording of CCS’s supplier webinar.

There is a 1% levy payable by suppliers to CCS on the payment amounts received from awarded contracts. The levy is standard across all CCS agreements. It funds CCS’ operating costs and enables the benefits that the commercial agreements provide. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority will fully reimburse this fee for all CPCA awarded contracts.

Register

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority will also be using the e-tendering portal Due North  (https://procontract.due-north.com) to manage the procurement of this project. Please ensure your organisation is registered on our e-tendering portal.

If you have any queries about this call to register on the DPS, please get in touch with Caroline Fairhurst at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority by email at: caroline.fairhurst@cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk

We’re working to ensure Cambridgeshire and Peterborough is an amazing place to live and to work.  To support the ambition, we want all residents in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to have access to motivating and inspiring learning opportunities throughout their life. Adult education has a vital role to play.

We work closely with colleges, training providers, local councils and employers to ensure a wide range of high-quality education and training courses are available for adults to retrain and upskill at any age.  Courses will help residents to:

• gain valuable qualifications and skills that boost employment prospects, increase incomes, and help more people share prosperity
• accelerate promotion at work and progression to courses at Level 2 and 3 or to higher education
• build confidence, self-esteem and community connection through volunteering
• improve health and wellbeing through enriching learning opportunities

Read our Devolution Report here

Use our Find A Course search tool to see what’s on offer near you or download our latest Adult Learning Offer. Use the links below to take you to college and provider websites for the latest course information and to enrol.  If you can’t find the course you’re looking for, check if it’s funded here.

Education and training courses for adults aged 19+ in England are funded through the Adult Education Budget (AEB). From August 2019, this was devolved by central Government to the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority. This means we can decide locally how we spend and use the £11.9m budget that we get every year to improve opportunities and life chances of residents.

Our Colleges  

The following colleges run a diverse selection of courses for adults, including technical and professional courses. Many are fully funded through our AEB:

• Inspire Education Group – Peterborough College and Stamford College
• Cambridge Regional College
• College of West Anglia
• Bedford College
• West Suffolk College
• North Hertfordshire College

Our Adult Learning Services

Our local councils run 100s of free courses from various venues in the community across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, including the library network, community centres as well as online learning. Some of these courses are funded through the AEB. We work with:

• Cambridgeshire Skills
• City College Peterborough

Our Independent Training Providers

Local training providers we help fund run a wide range of courses from local centres and online:

• Steadfast Training
• Back2Work Training
• The Skills Network
• NACRO
• The College of Animal Welfare
• GNR Training
• System Group
• New Meaning Foundation

Entitlements to learning.

If you are a resident of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and aged 19+ you may be eligible for be fully funded courses, if you fall into the categories below:

• You do not have a full Level 2 (equivalent to five GCSEs grade A*-C or Grades 4-9) or full Level 3 qualification (equivalent to 2 A Level passes or , you are eligible for fully funded Level 2 or Level 3 qualifications.
• You have not passed English and maths, up to and including Level 2 (GCSE Grade 4 or C)

Our vision is for the devolution of AEB to be ‘best in class’ of all devolved regions in England. We published our Local Industrial Strategy and Regional Skills Strategy which identifies the challenges and opportunities for increasing and spreading wealth and prosperity more evenly across the region.  Our strategic intent is to:

1. Improve life chances and increase the social mobility of all our residents
2. Improve prosperity for all by increasing productivity of our workforce through upskilling
3. Enable unemployed residents to reskill and gain good employment
4. Improve the quality of life through an enriching lifelong learning offer

We will achieve this by:

• Using AEB funding in our region to focus skills improvements for residents in Fenland, Peterborough and those wards in Cambridgeshire that are within the top 20% most deprived in England
• Increasing the number of adults qualified to Level 2 and 3. According to analysis by the Centre for Business and Economic Research, the gains for a Level 3 qualification equate to a 20% increase in average wages and a 14% increase in employment prospects.
• Supporting employers to invest in upskilling their workforce
• Working in partnership with providers and stakeholders to tailor the skills offer to local employers

Our response to the Covid-19 pandemic

• During the pandemic our providers worked hard to develop ways of delivering their training offers online, In line with the updated guidance from Government, we have now adapted to be able to offer you a mix of blended learning and face to face where appropriate and safe to do so. Please speak to your provider if you need support with a laptop or tablet device
• We are focussing AEB to support our regional response to redundancies. For free careers information, advice and guidance, please click here.

Partnership and Governance

With the AEB for our region now controlled locally through the Combined Authority, we are keen to ensure that residents and employers have a say on how we invest this funding.

Our Skills Committee chaired by Cllr Lucy Nethsingha, provides strong local governance and councillors from each district represent their area to ensure residents and businesses benefit from opportunities.  For your local member see the Skills Committee Membership page. Members of the public are welcome to join the Skills Committee as observers and can propose questions to Combined Authority officers and Committee members.

You can also contact us directly. We are always keen to hear from residents, learners, providers and employers, you can email: AEBDevolution@cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk

Collaboration, Co-design, and Flexibilities

Our approach is to work in partnership with our family of colleges and training providers. We value and support the wider role of colleges and providers as key parts of their communities, raising people’s aspirations and improving access to new skills.

We meet regularly with our colleges and providers to discuss performance and opportunities to increase the adult learning offer and improve. One of the benefits of devolution is that we can agree flexibilities to the funding rules for the benefit of our residents and businesses. These flexibilities allow us to meet new and changing adult skills demands from people and employers quickly and effectively. Every year, we consult on our flexibilities and encourage people to share their views.  Our Consultation findings can be found below as well as our current flexibilities.

Our Progress and Success

We are committed to a culture of continuous self-improvement under the Combined Authority’s Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. An independent evaluation of AEB is commissioned each year and reports and recommendations can be found below:

2019/20 AEB Evaluation Report

AEB Eligibility for Afghan Citizens seeking refuge in the UK

AEB Eligibility Oct 2022

Apprenticeships

Unlock with Level 3 

European Social Fund

STAR Hub:

The Skills, Talent, Apprenticeship and Recruitment (STAR) Hub connects learners, employers, parents, schools, colleges, training providers and higher education to create a dynamic skills ‘marketplace’ in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

It provides an online platform combined with a brokerage and facilitation service to better connect learners, employers and skills providers of all kinds. The aim is to be a simple, easy-to-use ‘one-stop shop’, which boosts skills opportunities for all, supporting people, communities and the local economy.

It is funded by the European Social Fund and is provided by the Business Growth Service.

Covid Support Packages

CPCA Funding Performance Rules 2022-23 

CPCA Funding Rates and Formula Rules 2022-23

AEB Allocations 2022-23

AEB Allocations (2020-21)

AEB Allocations Funding Performance Rules Version 3

Our Allocations Funding Rates and Formula Rules

Our Allocations Funding Performance Rules

AEB Commissioning Strategy 2020-25

AEB Business Cycle Planner (2021-2022)

Second Level 3 Offer 

AEB Grant Providers Allocation 2022-23

AEB Business Cycle Planner 2022-23

Second Level 3 Updated September 2023