Social Mobility Commission - State of the Nation 2027

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    "date": "2026-05-26T11:25:52+01:00",
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            "id": "GB-PPON-PDLB-8544-PLQT",
            "name": "Social Mobility Commission",
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    "tender": {
        "id": "SMC-2627-111",
        "legalBasis": {
            "id": "2023/54",
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            "uri": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/contents"
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        "title": "Social Mobility Commission - State of the Nation 2027",
        "description": "The Social Mobility Commission (SMC) monitors progress towards improving social mobility in the UK and promotes social mobility in England. It is an independent statutory body. Its annual State of the Nation report is the Commission's main publication on UK-wide progress on social mobility and is laid before Parliament. The Commission is seeking a supplier to provide analytical support, methodological development, statistical quality assurance and interpretation for the 2027 State of the Nation report (with possible extension for the 2028 report). The supplier will work closely with the SMC secretariat. The emphasis of this contract is on robust analysis, reproducibility, interpretation and selected methodological improvements, rather than routine production work where SMC already has established in-house code. The Social Mobility Index provides the framework for State of the Nation. It includes mobility outcomes, intermediate outcomes and drivers of social mobility. The current indicators are available through the SMC State of the Nation data explorer: https://social-mobility.data.gov.uk/ Please see more details in the attached document of the tendering requirements. Bidders must submit their Bids before 12:00 midday on 19th June 2026. All Bids must be submitted to contact@socialmobilitycommission.gov.uk. Failure to return Bids by the time and due date or in the required format may disqualify Bidders from consideration.",
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        "submissionMethodDetails": "Bidders must submit their Bids before 12:00 midday on 19th June 2026. All Bids must be submitted to contact@socialmobilitycommission.gov.uk. Failure to return Bids by the time and due date or in the required format may disqualify Bidders from consideration. Format of the bid Tenderers should present their proposals in the following format: Section 1: Summary of Proposal Section 2: Meeting the Specification Details of proposed approach; - Methodology including constraints and possible solutions; - Project management - Tenderers should indicate how they will monitor the project to ensure it is delivered in terms of quality, timeliness and cost. Tenders must include a work plan/Gantt chart that clearly shows the key activities and milestones leading up to the final report. - Staffing, including short staff profiles covering examples of key relevant experience and individual/staff expertise and qualifications. Proposed distribution of duties should be clearly stated if the bid involves sub-contracting or collaboration between different providers; and - Outputs, including how the findings will be presented. Section 3: Cost and Charging Arrangements Costs should be shown separately by deliverables set out above. For example: - Deliverable 1: PS Insert amount - Deliverable 2: PS Insert amount - Deliverable 3: PS Insert amount - Deliverable 4: PS Insert amount - Deliverable 5: PS Insert amount - Total: PS Insert amount All costs should be quoted exclusive of VAT, but please indicate if the project will attract VAT. If your proposal includes costs for sub-contractors these costs must be shown inclusive of any VAT element (e.g. if a sub-contractor's costs to you are PS10K plus VAT, your proposal should show subcontractors costs as PS12K inclusive of VAT @ 20%). The department will also conduct its own due diligence checks in relation to the bidder's financial viability and may request additional financial information to be provided as part of this process. Whilst the department will attempt to mitigate any financial risks it may, at its own discretion, reject a bid where it assesses the financial risk to be too great to proceed with the award of the contract. Section 4: Risk Management - Outline, in no more than one-page, the key risks to delivering the project and what contingencies will be put in place to deal with them. - A risk is any factor that may delay, disrupt or prevent the full achievement of a project objective. All risks should be identified. - For each risk, the one-page summary should assess its likelihood (high, medium or low) and specify its possible impact on the project objectives (again rated high, medium or low). The assessment should also identify appropriate actions that would reduce or eliminate each risk or its impact. - Typical areas of risk for a research project might include staffing, resource constraints, technical constraints, data access, timing, management and operational issues, but this is not an exhaustive list. Section 5: Data Security - Provide a plan that explains how departmental and/or personal data will be protected. - Provide a copy of your Cyber Essentials Qualification. Section 6: References For the references, the SMC requires relevant examples of similar projects you have completed and how they are similar to this tender. Sections 1-4 should not exceed 10 sides of A4 and sections 5-6 should not exceed 3 sides of A4, for a combined total of 13 sides. Any bids above that will not be considered. The font size should not be smaller than 10pt. Embedded links will not be considered, nor will Annexes that exceed the 13 page count.",
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                "awardCriteria": {
                    "criteria": [
                        {
                            "type": "quality",
                            "name": "Methodology and analytical approach",
                            "description": "Demonstrates a robust approach to ONS-LS analysis, change-over-time methods, LFS/tLFS robustness, index improvement and proportionate handling of uncertainty, limitations and feasibility.",
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                            "name": "Team and organisational experience",
                            "description": "Demonstrates relevant expertise in social mobility, official statistics, longitudinal data, LFS/tLFS or similar survey data, reproducible quantitative analysis and public-facing analytical outputs.",
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                            "type": "quality",
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                            "description": "Provides credible QA processes, independent rerun or code-review arrangements, secure handling of official or sensitive data, and clear arrangements for code sharing and documentation.",
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                            "name": "Interpretation and presentation",
                            "description": "Shows ability to translate technical analysis into accurate, clear narrative and accessible visual or tabular outputs for policy, analytical and public audiences.",
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                            "type": "quality",
                            "name": "Project management and collaboration",
                            "description": "Provides a realistic workplan, clear governance, risk management, communication arrangements and evidence of capacity to deliver to the State of the Nation timetable.",
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                            "name": "Financial scoring",
                            "description": "Financial scoring represents 20% of the overall evaluation. The bidder with the lowest overall price will receive 20 marks, and all other bids will be marked as a proportional variance from the top-scoring bid. The formula being used for Relative Assessment for this procurement is: Bid Score = (Lowest Price/bid price) x 20",
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                    "startDate": "2026-07-13T00:00:00+01:00",
                    "endDate": "2027-07-31T23:59:59+01:00",
                    "maxExtentDate": "2028-12-29T23:59:59Z"
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                "renewal": {
                    "description": "If the contract is extended, it will be extended to 29th December 2028, with an increased cost of PS50,000 (ex VAT). If extended, the strategic priorities for 2028 are: - Support the transition to the transformed Labour Force Survey (tLFS), including changes to variable names, weights, quality, discontinuities and comparability over time. - Investigate equivalent longitudinal resources for Scotland and Northern Ireland if access and feasibility allow. - Deliver a distinct topic of interest for the 2028 report. Explanatory geographical analysis may be considered as an example topic, subject to SMC priorities, feasibility, budget and timetable. - Continue the emphasis on reproducible R code, plain-English technical documentation, accessible Excel outputs and GitHub-based code sharing. The extra deliverables, if extended, would be the following: Deliverable 1: 2028 tLFS transition and comparability plan - 30 September 2027 - A review of changes arising from the transition from LFS to tLFS, including variable names, weights, data quality, breaks in series and implications for comparability over time. - Advice on whether and how existing LFS-based indicators should be updated, bridged, caveated or temporarily paused. - Updated or new code where required to adapt existing analysis to tLFS variables and weights. - A plain-English note for use in the report explaining any discontinuities or limitations in the time series. Deliverable 2: 2028 feasibility review: Scotland and Northern Ireland longitudinal resources - 30 September 2027 - A short feasibility review of equivalent or complementary longitudinal resources for Scotland and Northern Ireland. - Advice on access routes, governance requirements, coverage, comparability and analytical value for State of the Nation. - A recommendation on whether any such resource should be used in the 2028 report, deferred to a later year, or treated as unsuitable for the current purpose. Deliverable 3: 2028 topic of interest - 30 September 2027 - A distinct analytical contribution for the 2028 report, to be agreed with SMC during the contract. - The topic may include explanatory geographical analysis, for example using Census 2001, 2011 and 2021 to relate occupational-structure change to education, inactivity, unemployment, GVA and other local conditions. This is included as an example option, not as a firm requirement. - For any agreed topic, the supplier should provide a scoped analysis plan, analysis or methodological advice as agreed, QA, interpretation and reproducible documentation. - If the topic is not feasible within the contract timetable or budget, the supplier should provide a short rationale and recommend a narrower alternative. Deliverable 4: 2028 reproducibility, accessibility and publication support pack - 31 July 2028 - Quality-assured analytical outputs for new work conducted for the 2028 report. - Accessible Excel files containing the underlying data for charts and tables used in the report or data explorer, using an SMC-supplied template where provided. - Technical documentation sufficient for SMC analysts to rerun or audit the analysis. - Support for checking the final report, data explorer and press materials so that the statistics are interpreted accurately. Deliverable 5: Final handover - 29 December 2028 - Complete, documented code and outputs for all new analysis conducted under the contract. - A final limitations and lessons-learned note, including recommendations for the 2029 State of the Nation analytical cycle. - A handover meeting with SMC analysts to walk through code, outputs, outstanding caveats and any recommended next steps."
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