---
title: "UK Shared Prosperity (UKSPF) & Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF) Supporting Local Business"
ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-040ba2"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-040ba2"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-040ba2.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-040ba2.json"
source: "Find A Tender Service"
current_stage: "Award"
buyer: "CENTRAL BEDFORDSHIRE COUNCIL"
published: "2023-10-13"
---

# UK Shared Prosperity (UKSPF) & Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF) Supporting Local Business

Buyer: CENTRAL BEDFORDSHIRE COUNCIL  
Current stage: Award  
OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-040ba2

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## Summary

The Central Bedfordshire Council has completed a tender process for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) & Rural England Prosperity Fund to support local businesses. The fund aims to invest in domestic priorities by building pride in place, supporting high-quality skills, and investing in employment opportunities. Central Bedfordshire Council allocated funds to create jobs, boost community cohesion, support existing industries, and stimulate innovation and growth. The procurement method used was an award procedure without prior publication of a call for competition.

This tender provides opportunities for businesses in business development consultancy services to engage with local government projects that focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, business growth, export support, and local business decarbonisation. Businesses offering expertise in these areas, such as consultancy firms, business incubators, technology providers, and sustainability specialists, would be well-suited to compete and benefit from this tender.

## Notice

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) was launched by the government in 2022 and is central to its 'levelling up' agenda, with PS2.6 billion of funding set aside nationally for local investment by March 2025. The Government's aim of the fund is to invest in domestic priorities by targeting funding where it is needed most - building pride in place - supporting high-quality skills, training and pay and investing in employment opportunities, innovation and productivity. Central Bedfordshire Council was allocated funding through both UKSPF and also the Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF) through an addendum to deliver projects in 2023-24 and 2024-25. The Council has committed some of this funding to the Supporting Local business theme, which aims to create jobs and boost community cohesion through investment in existing industries and institutions, support for those starting businesses, sharing knowledge and expertise, improvement in retail, hospitality and leisure facilities, networking and collaboration and stimulating innovation and growth

### Lot Information

Lot 1

Delivery of the following 5 Supporting Local Businesses interventions: Summary of each intervention Project: E21: Business Innovation - Engagement and provision of innovation and technological support to Central Bedfordshire Businesses with the intention of improving their performance. Enterprises will receive expert business advice, guidance, training and mentoring to support them with improved productivity, and assistance to adopt new or improved products or services. E24A: Business Start Up & Entrepreneurship (including support for Social Enterprises) - This intervention is to support Entrepreneurship (those in the process of starting up) & Start Up businesses (including social enterprises). Delivery will be aimed at assisting potential entrepreneurs to be business ready/self-employment and resulting in businesses being set up as a result of support received as well as newly established businesses E24B: Business Growth - Scale up & Resilience - Supporting established businesses with growth potential through the adoption of new or improved products or services E28: Export Support with Grants - Delivery of export-readiness activity as a result of UKSPF support, resulting in local businesses engaged in new markets following support. Export Grants to support Businesses to grow their overseas trading, supporting local employment Support for businesses in developing their export strategy E29: Local Business De-carbonisation - Delivery Supporting decarbonisation, net zero initiatives and improving the natural environment whilst growing the local economy through direct advice, guidance, mentoring and training resulting in a new or improved de-carbonisation/net zero plan. Overall - All Supporting local business Interventions to be underpinned by: Direct business support, advice, guidance, mentoring and training

### Procurement Information

The procurement involves the provision of highly specialised professional services. The aim is to partner with experienced, specialised local business support intermediaries who understand the local geography, have existing relationships with the local SME community and who are best placed to engage with eligible businesses at pace, deliver high quality support across the 5 interventions (innovation, entrepreneurship, business growth, exporting and decarbonisation) alongside capital grant delivery to enhance the tangible impacts. There is a significant possibility that any underspend from the current financial year may not be carried forwarded to next year, based on current guidance from Government. This could result in a substantial loss of funding and much needed support for our business community. By enabling partnership with local organisations, we are maximising spend in 2023/24 and reducing the risk of losing funding from Government. Within Central Bedfordshire, we have existing, highly specialised business support intermediaries who have significant relationships with our business community and understand the local geography and SME ecosystem to enable them to deliver at pace.

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Find A Tender Service |
| Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/030202-2023 |
| Notice type | Award Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Services |
| Procurement method | Limited |
| Procurement method details | Award procedure without prior publication of a call for competition |
| Tender suitability | Not specified |
| Awardee scale | Large, SME |
| All stages | Award |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 13 Oct 2023 |
| Submission deadline | Not specified |
| Future notice date | Not specified |
| Award date | 11 Oct 2023 |
| Contract period | Not specified |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | Not specified |
| Lots value | Not specified |
| Awards value | Not specified |
| Contracts value | £1,568,414 |

## Status

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender status | Complete |
| Lots status | Cancelled |
| Awards status | Active |
| Contracts status | Active |

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | CENTRAL BEDFORDSHIRE COUNCIL |
| Locality | SHEFFORD |
| Post town | Stevenage |
| Postcode | SG17 5TQ |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLH East (England) |
| ITL 2 | TLH2 Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire |
| ITL 3 | TLH25 Central Bedfordshire |
| Local authority | Central Bedfordshire |
| Electoral ward | Shefford |
| Westminster constituency | Hitchin |
| Delivery location | TLH25 Central Bedfordshire |

## Supplier

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Number of suppliers | 4 |
| Supplier names | BEDFORDSHIRE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE; CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY; UNIVERSITY OF BEDFORDSHIRE; WENTA |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

- 79 - Business services: law, marketing, consulting, recruitment, printing and security

### Codes

- 79411100 - Business development consultancy services

## Release History

- 13 Oct 2023 at 09:25 - Award - Award Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/030202-2023

## Notice URLs

- https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk

## Provenance

This Markdown file is an alternate public rendering of the D3 Tenders contract record. The canonical page is https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-040ba2. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-040ba2.json.