Southwark Local Access Partnership / Enterprise Development Partner ITT
The Southwark Local Access Partnership invites tenders for a range of a range of enterprise support packages.
The Southwark Local Access Partnership Enterprise Development aims to support the development of minoritised and female-led organisations in Southwark, making them stronger, more resilient, and more sustainable to improve the local social economy.
We will do this through the provision of enterprise development support, which will provide participants with the skills, knowledge and business assessment to further understand their business model and sector, to uncover and maximise potential opportunities. In some instances, this will be supported by grant finance to support plans towards growth and sustainability.
Background
Southwark is one of six places chosen as a Local Access place – with funding available to help local trading charities and social enterprises in the borough to grow their enterprise activity.
Although Southwark is a fast-growing borough, it is one experiencing significant inequalities and the aim of the Southwark Local Access Partnership (LAP) is to vastly improve the strength and diversity of the social economy of the borough.
Research identified four typical gaps holding back micro-enterprise growth, particularly among social sector organisations. Affordable workspace was highlighted as a key problem, with other barriers being access to finance, access to networks and access to business support.
About the tender
The purpose of this tender exercise is to commission a range of enterprise support packages to support smaller organisations through various stages of early growth and to establish their base. The four enterprise support packages are set out in detail in the specification section within the Invitation to Tender document. They are intended to be delivered via a funnel approach with more businesses supported at the light-touch stage (with no direct grants) and fewer business supported at the final growth stage. Organisations do not have to progress through early stages to benefit from later stages, but some are expected to, therefore the later packages are profiled in Year 2 and Year 3 only.
Currently we assume that tender processes will select multiple providers for early stage support and fewer provider(s) for the more advanced packages, with that partner(s) delivering both support and small grants together.
We have not yet decided whether each of the later stage packages will be tendered individually, or whether some or all will be combined in a single tender. Potential providers will have the opportunity to tender to provide multiple packages of support across the various stages. Multiple packages can be awarded to an individual provider if it is felt that they are a strong candidate to deliver at multiple stages of the programme.
Read the Frequently Asked Questions here.
If you wish to apply, your tender response should be sent by email to edp@southwarklap.org.uk to arrive by midnight on 17 November 2023.
