Ambition Institute and the Department for Education have settled a legal dispute over a £121 million contract to run the new Institute of Teaching.
Ambition, a teacher training charity, last month filed a High Court legal claim after the DfE rejected its bid to run the Institute - which the government is calling “England’s flagship teacher training and development provider”.
Today, a “Tomlin order” was issued, meaning that an agreement has been reached and any court action is stayed under the terms agreed in advance by two parties.
The claim
Ambition had accused the DfE of making “manifest errors” in the way it assessed the bids for the Institute of Teaching contract earlier this month, which had led to it naming rival School Led Development Trust (SLDT) as the preferred bidder for the contract.
Its legal claim, seen by Tes, also accused the DfE of misjudgement in its ruling that the consortium failed the financial assessment in its bid for the tender and was not the most economically advantageous.
Ambition had launched the legal action to get the bid decision overturned, or for the DfE to pay for “wasted” costs. Ambition’s costs were up to £750,000, according to court documents, but Tes understands that the institute was not seeking the full amount.
DfE defence revealed
Tes has also today obtained the DfE’s legal defence, submitted on Friday, in which the department denied that it acted “in breach of its obligation to treat all bidders equally” and its “obligation to act in a transparent manner”.
The DfE also denied that it had made “manifest errors in the exercise of its discretion to reject the final tender submitted” by Ambition.
Tes previously revealed that the government had set aside £121 million to fund the IoT over six years. It is set to train 1,000 new teachers a year.
The DfE has said the IoT would be designed to show “exemplary delivery of the government’s ambitious reforms”.
According to the department, the provider would offer training to around 2,000 early career teachers and 2,000 mentors per year, as well as 1,000 participants in National Professional Qualification leadership training.
The Department for Education and Ambition Institute said in a joint statement that they “have reached an amicable settlement” regarding the Institute of Teaching procurement.
They added that Ambition “will continue to play a crucial role in making high-quality professional development available to teachers and school leaders in England”.
The consortium “strongly supports the government’s policy to invest in teacher development and offer 500,000 professional development opportunities across this Parliament”.
“The department intends to announce the award of the Institute of Teaching contract shortly.”
