The Department for Education has launched an £18 million bid to find up to three providers to support the running of its flagship tutoring programme over the next two years.
Last month, the DfE announced that £349 million of tutoring cash would go directly to schools from the next academic year in a bid to “simplify” the system after it finally decided to end its contract with Dutch recruitment firm Randstad because it struggled to meet targets.
It also said it would be launching a bid to find a new supplier to deliver the academic mentors part of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) and offer “quality assurance and training”, which it said would “support schools to make the best use of their funding”.
Now, three separate contracts have been published - £7,987,500 for a provider to recruit and deploy academic mentors, £7,423,500 to train tutors and academic mentors, and £2,481,600 to recruit quality-assured tuition partners.
How will the contracts work?
The first contract is for a provider to “recruit a new pool” of Academic Mentors - and “manage their deployment to schools”.
The second says that bidders will be expected to provide “high-quality training” for tutors and academic mentors, and ensure that this training is available to at least 25,000 participants in the 2022-23 academic year and 20,000 participants the following year.
The final contract says that the provider will provide quality assurance of the agencies that provide tutors directly to schools, “so that schools can be confident that the tutoring provision they receive from these organisations is of a high standard”.
The bidding will end on 23 May, and the contracts will start in July.
Currently, the NTP has three different strands - school-led, academic mentors and tuition partners. While the money is all going directly to schools from next year, schools will still be able to work with partners, as well as recruit and employ academic mentors, but they’ll get the funds directly for this instead of having to go through a third party.
Changes welcomed last month
The government hired Dutch firm Randstad to deliver the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) last summer, but the provider has come under consistent fire since the early days of its contract, with tuition partners complaining that its online booking platform is bureaucratic and “dysfunctional” to use.
The changes announced to the tutoring set-up last month were broadly supported by school-sector leaders, with Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, and Robert Halfon, chair of the Commons Education Select Committee, among those welcoming the announcement.
Estimates published by the DfE alongside the announcement last month showed that 887,521 tuition courses had started so far this academic year, with more than three-quarters (674,941) delivered through the school-led route.
NTP under fire in recent months
Randstad and the NTP had come under fire from politicians and school leaders for months prior to the announcement.
Earlier this year, Tes revealed that NTP tutors were running sessions for “ghost pupils” who didn’t turn up because of confusion over targets.
Last month, the DfE was accused of “moving the goalposts” after “confused guidance” over revised targets for the programme were sent to school leaders.
Robert Halfon previously called on the government to “seriously consider” breaking its contract with Randstad over fears it was “not reaching the most vulnerable children in our communities”.
