---
title: "Older Buildings Research (OBR) Professional Engineering Expert Advice Role"
ocid: "ocds-h6vhtk-05f8c9"
canonical_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/?ocid=ocds-h6vhtk-05f8c9"
markdown_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-05f8c9.md"
json_url: "https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-05f8c9.json"
source: "Find A Tender Service"
current_stage: "Award"
buyer: "DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION"
published: "2026-03-17"
---

# Older Buildings Research (OBR) Professional Engineering Expert Advice Role

Buyer: DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION  
Current stage: Award  
OCID: ocds-h6vhtk-05f8c9

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## Summary

The Department for Education (DfE) has completed the procurement process for an extension of the Older Buildings Research (OBR) Project, contracting Useful Simple Group Limited for their expertise in professional engineering. This award involves providing specialist technical services to support the project's final phase, which focuses on the post-war education estate in the United Kingdom. The procurement, conducted as a direct award, ensures continuity using the same technical assumptions and interpretation methods from the project's initial phases. The contract commenced on 3rd March 2026, with services running until the end of the month.

This procurement presents opportunities for businesses specialising in architectural, construction, engineering, and inspection services. Given the DfE’s requirement for thorough technical expertise and the project's extension scope, firms with robust experience in the education sector's infrastructure analysis may find collaborative growth prospects, particularly SMEs that can adapt and deliver consistent, engineering-led insights. The project supports large-scale fieldwork integration into risk models, making it ideal for contractors with a focus on data-driven methodologies. Business entities capable of providing technical enhancement services tailored to DfE’s strategic objectives would be well-suited to engage and innovate within this framework.

## Notice

The Department for Education (DfE) requires further specialist technical services from an existing supplier to support the final phase of the Older Building Research (OBR) project. The OBR project has already been procured and a consortium bid was successful; of which the supplier was a party, fulfilling the Engineering Expert role as a subcontractor to the prime supplier. This supplier is Useful Simple Group Limited. Through the OBR project, the DfE is investigating, cataloguing and extrapolating the condition of the post-war education estate, including through onsite intrusive investigations. This research project will enable the DfE to improve its understanding of the post-war education estate. This work is underpinned by a bespoke risk model, designed using research and investigations conducted to date and based on the technical assumptions and interpretative approach applied by the Engineering Expert Advice role. The project requires a further final phase not originally included in the contract with the prime supplier successful in the original procurement. This final phase involves interpreting and enhancing fieldwork inputs for model development, support on Large Language Model (LLM) workflows to support LLM development, providing engineering-led interpretation of fieldwork findings to enhance model relevance and insight, and applying the already established fieldwork approach across up to six additional schools, developing proposals for alternative methodologies to enhance data quality and fieldwork insights. To ensure continuity and compatibility with the research and model developed to date, the services under this additional appointment must be delivered by the supplier who fulfilled the Engineering Expert Advice role in the original procurement and using the same technical assumptions and interpretative approach previously developed by them and applied. This consistency is essential; the model and supporting analysis have been built incrementally as a single coherent system. Introducing outputs based on different assumptions and knowledge base would require significant re-engineering and re-validation of existing work, creating disproportionate technical complexity and undermining the integrity of the model. The appointed supplier will provide engineering-led interpretation of the above scope to integrate new data into the current risk model without compromising its structure or functionality. These services will enable the DfE to maintain a consistent technical approach, ensuring that new findings complement and strengthen the existing evidence.

### Procurement Information

Additional or repeat goods, services or works - extension or partial replacement Justification under Paragraph 7, schedule 5: (a) The justification applies where the contracting authority is procuring services from i) an existing supplier ii) which are an extension to existing services and iii) in circumstances where a change in supplier would result in the receipt of services different from or incompatible with the previous services and iv) this difference would result in disproportionate technical difficulties. All four tests are met here: (b) As regards i), the supplier was part of the winning consortium in the original procurement as a subcontractor to the prime and therefore is the existing supplier of these services. The Contracting Authority now needs to contract directly with this supplier. (c) As regards ii) these research services are an extension to existing research services as it is the final phase where 6 additional schools will be added; (d) As regards iii), The next phase of the OBR project requires the same fieldwork approach to be applied across 6 additional schools and for alternative methodologies to be developed and tested. In order for new findings to be compatible with earlier work, this must be done using the same assumptions and interpretative approach that had been applied previously, in the existing research and risk model. (e) As regards iv), Iif a different supplier were appointed, the interpretation of earlier and new fieldwork would inevitably be carried out using different professional judgements and assumptions. This would change how findings are assessed and how they are used to inform the model. As a result, the outputs produced would not be compatible with the existing model and the data used to inform it. It would risk wasting the work already done. Consequently, a change in supplier would result in the Department receiving services and outputs that are different and incompatible with those already developed. This incompatibility arises from how the model and supporting work are conducted and built up incrementally over the course of the project, and not due to cost, time, or other considerations. Further and finally, it should be noted that the value is currently anticipated to be below threshold by PS88 and therefore this Transparency Notice is voluntary at the current time as the contracting authority also has the ability to award a below-threshold contract to the supplier. However if for whatever reason the value exceeds the threshold, ad the contract becomes a Convertible Contract, then the contracting authority will seek to rely on the direct award exemption at Schedule 5 paragraph 7.

## Key Details

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication source | Find A Tender Service |
| Latest notice | https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/024239-2026 |
| Notice type | UK7 - Contract Details Notice |
| Procurement type | Standard |
| Procurement category | Services |
| Procurement method | Direct |
| Procurement method details | Direct award |
| Tender suitability | SME, VCSE |
| Awardee scale | SME |
| All stages | Award |

## Dates

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Publication date | 17 Mar 2026 |
| Submission deadline | Not specified |
| Future notice date | Not specified |
| Award date | 18 Dec 2025 |
| Contract period | 3 Mar 2026 - 31 Mar 2026 |
| Recurrence | Not specified |

## Values

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Tender value | Not specified |
| Lots value | Not specified |
| Awards value | £116,333 |
| Contracts value | £116,333 |

## Status

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

## Buyer

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Main buyer | DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION |
| Locality | LONDON |
| Post town | South West London |
| Postcode | SW1P 3BT |
| Country | England |
| ITL 1 | TLI London |
| ITL 2 | TLI3 Inner London - West |
| ITL 3 | TLI35 Westminster and City of London |
| Local authority | Westminster |
| Electoral ward | St James's |
| Westminster constituency | Cities of London and Westminster |
| Delivery location | Not specified |

## Supplier

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Number of suppliers | 1 |
| Supplier names | USEFUL SIMPLE GROUP |

## CPV Codes

### Divisions

- 71 - Architectural, construction, engineering and inspection services

### Codes

- 71000000 - Architectural, construction, engineering and inspection services

## Release History

- 17 Mar 2026 at 16:09 - Award - UK7 - Contract Details Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/024239-2026
- 13 Jan 2026 at 16:05 - Award - UK6 - Contract Award Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/002812-2026
- 18 Dec 2025 at 11:13 - Award - UK5 - Transparency Notice - https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/084241-2025

## Documents

- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/024239-2026
  17th March 2026 - Contract details notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/002812-2026
  13th January 2026 - Contract award notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/084241-2025
  18th December 2025 - Transparency notice on Find a Tender
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/A-13453
  Redacted copy of the contract
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/A-13454
  conflictOfInterest
- https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/Attachment/A-13455
  conflictOfInterest

## Notice URLs

- https://expedition.uk.com/
- https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/54/contents

## 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-05f8c9. The underlying structured data is available as OCDS JSON at https://d3tenders.com/contract/ocds-h6vhtk-05f8c9.json.