Family Telephone Advice contracts

On this page:

Update - amended timetable
About this tender
About the tender process
List of documents
For more information

Update - amended timetable

The tender closing date for the Family Telephone Advice contracts has now passed.

Applicants who bid before the closing date are advised to look at the amended timetable in the documents section of this page. This timetable replaces that contained in the Invitation to Tender at section 3.11.

About this tender

Following a successful pilot, the LSC have confirmed that family advice is to become a permanent category of advice available via the Community Legal Advice helpline. We are now inviting tenders to deliver this service.

Community Legal Advice (CLA) is a free and confidential advice service paid for by legal aid. The helpline 0845 3454 345 provides specialist advice to eligible callers on:

Debt
Education
Benefits and tax credits
Employment and housing.

Other callers are directed to alternative sources of advice and information, including local face-to-face legal aid practitioners. The LSC launched the service in July 2004 and it now receives in excess of 70,000 calls per month.

The family telephone advice pilot commenced in October 2007. An evaluation of the pilot service can be found in the documents panel on the right.

About the tender process

We are inviting tenders from organisations able to offer specialist advice in family law as part of the Community Legal Advice helpline.

Invitations to submit tenders are extended to:

Existing providers to the Legal Services Commission
Not for profit organisations
Voluntary organisations
Commercial organisations.

This is an open, competitive tender process. Organisations wishing to tender do not need to be current providers and new entrants to the market are welcome.

Full details of how to tender for this work are set in the Invitation to Tender document which can be found in the documents panel on the right.

The tender closing date is 12pm on Wednesday, 4 March 2009. Applications received after this date will not be considered.

List of documents

Please see the documents panel for:

Invitation to tender
Tender form Jan 09
Price bid form Jan 09
Draft CLA contract for signature Jan 09
Draft CLA contract standard terms Jan 09
Annexes to the draft CLA contract standard terms Jan 09
Tender timetable
Pilot evaluation

On 9 June we held an open day to communicate with providers about the tender. The presentation slides from the event a transcription of the Q&As from the event can be found on the Areas of work page.

For more information

Please email the family team if you have any questions relating to the tender process.

The deadline for receipt of questions was 23 January 2009. Answers to these questions can be found in the documents menu on the right.

> back to top

Last updated: 18 March 2009