East Riding Best Interest Assessors Tender 2025
East Riding's Best Interest Assessors framework closes 1 September 2026. See the 50/50 DoLS scoring, statutory pitfalls and how a 92% win-rate team bids it.
Image: A qualified health and social care professional, illustrating East Riding's Best Interest Assessor framework.
East Riding Best Interest Assessors Framework 2025: Scoring Breakdown
By the TenderLab Editorial Team. Last updated 6 August 2026.
East Riding of Yorkshire Council has put its Independent Best Interest Assessors 2025 framework out to tender, and bids close at 12:00 on 1 September 2026. The contract is worth £2.5032m excluding VAT and buys a pool of independent Best Interest Assessors to complete Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) assessments under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 for vulnerable adults across the East Riding.
This is a professional-services framework, not a care contract. The council is buying qualified assessor capacity, scored 50% on price and 50% on quality. On paper the rate matters, but in practice the quality method statements decide who gets a place.
If you assess DoLS cases for a living, or run a social work agency that does, this notice matters to you. The framework is Light Touch, reopens each year and is evaluated once a year, so the quality answers you write now set your standing on a contract that can run to 6 November 2030. We write this from the evaluator's side of the table.
Tender at a glance
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- Commissioning authority: East Riding of Yorkshire Council
- Contract title: Independent Best Interest Assessors 2025
- What is being bought: a framework of independent Best Interest Assessors to complete DoLS assessments under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 for vulnerable adults
- Estimated value: £2.5032m ex VAT (£3.00384m inc VAT)
- Contract term: 1 November 2026 to 6 November 2028, plus two 12-month extensions to 6 November 2030
- Procedure: open framework (Light Touch), reopening annually to new suppliers, evaluated once a year
- Lots: not stated
- Region: East Riding of Yorkshire (UKE12)
- Award criteria: Price 50%, Quality 50%
- Submission deadline: 1 September 2026, 12:00
- Source: Find a Tender notice 047637-2025
The essentials, before you commit a bid team:
- Quality is worth 50%, so your written answers, not just your rate, decide the outcome.
- The framework reopens each year, so missing 1 September 2026 delays you by about a year rather than shutting you out.
- Independence is the point. The council wants assessors from outside its own team, which is what the statute expects of a Best Interest Assessor.
- Get the law right on the page. This is a tender about the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and evaluators notice the moment a bidder does not command it.
Skip ahead to uncover:
- The cohort this framework serves and the law behind it
- The scoring is split evenly and quality decides it
- What East Riding evaluators will reward
- The pitfalls most likely to cost you marks
- The win-rate playbook for this framework
- Mobilisation from November 2026 and the annual reopening
- Frequently asked questions
- Book a free consultation on this tender
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The cohort this framework serves and the law behind it
Vulnerable adults, and the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
The people this framework protects are adults aged 18 and over, in care homes and hospitals across the East Riding, who may be deprived of their liberty as part of their care and cannot consent to it because they lack the mental capacity to do so. Many live with dementia, a learning disability, an acquired brain injury or a severe mental illness. The assessors decide whether the restrictions around them are lawful, necessary and in their best interests.
The legal ground is the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and specifically the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards set out in Schedule A1 of that Act. DoLS is the operating framework here. The Liberty Protection Safeguards were legislated for but never implemented, so any bid that talks about LPS being in force has misread the law. Write to DoLS under Schedule A1, because that is what the assessors will actually be doing.
Capacity is judged with the Act's two-stage test. Stage one asks whether there is an impairment of, or disturbance in the functioning of, the mind or brain. Stage two asks whether that impairment or disturbance means the person cannot make the specific decision at the time it needs to be made. It is a two-stage test, not a four-part test, and a DoLS evaluator will know the difference. Around it sit the Act's five statutory principles: the presumption of capacity, taking all practicable steps to support a decision, the right to make an unwise decision, best interests, and the least restrictive option.
The threshold for a deprivation of liberty comes from the Supreme Court. In P v Cheshire West and Chester Council [2014] UKSC 19, the court set the "acid test": a person is deprived of their liberty where they are under continuous supervision and control and not free to leave, and have not consented to those arrangements. That judgment is why DoLS referral volumes are so high, and why councils need independent assessor capacity.
A DoLS authorisation rests on six assessments: age, mental health, mental capacity, best interests, eligibility and no refusals. A Best Interest Assessor is a defined role, appointed by the Supervisory Body, which in England is always the local authority, here East Riding of Yorkshire Council. The BIA completes the best interests assessment and several of the others, while the mental health assessment is completed by a Section 12 doctor. The role is not self-awarded: the Regulations require an experienced social worker, nurse, occupational therapist or psychologist with at least two years of post-registration experience who has completed approved BIA training and keeps it current.
The Care Act 2014 sits in the background as adult social care context, and the Care Quality Commission monitors how DoLS operates in care homes and hospitals. Neither is the source of DoLS. The source is the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Keep those lines clean in your answers.
The scoring is split evenly and quality decides it
Fifty-fifty, and quality is the lever.
East Riding has weighted this framework 50% price and 50% quality. On a professional-services framework bought through the Light Touch regime under the Procurement Act 2023, that even split does more work than it looks. Rates on assessor frameworks tend to cluster, because the market knows what a DoLS assessment is worth, so when the price answers land close together, the quality answers become the separator.
So the arithmetic is simple. If most compliant bidders sit within a narrow band on price, you cannot buy your way to the top of the list by shaving your rate, and you should not try. You earn a place by scoring higher on the written quality questions than the provider next to you.
There is a second reason to put quality first. This framework reopens each year and is evaluated once a year, so your quality answers are not a one-off. They set your position on a contract that can run to 6 November 2030, and the marks you earn now compound.
What East Riding evaluators will reward
Legal precision, and evidence you can carry the caseload.
We have read 200+ health and social care submissions, and the pattern is consistent. Evaluators reward bidders who prove three things: that their assessors are qualified and independent, that they can absorb the referral volume without missing statutory deadlines, and that their reports stand up if challenged.
Command of the law is rewarded first, because it separates a specialist from a generalist. An answer that names the two-stage capacity test correctly, applies the Cheshire West acid test to a real scenario, and explains how the assessor reaches the least restrictive option reads very differently from one that gestures at "person-centred assessment" and moves on.
Turnaround is rewarded second. DoLS runs on statutory clocks: urgent authorisations that last up to seven days, and a 21-day window for a standard authorisation. An evaluator wants to see how you triage referrals, flag the urgent ones, and keep the standard cases inside the window when volumes spike.
Report quality is rewarded third. A standard authorisation can be challenged in the Court of Protection under Section 21A of the Act, and the person's Relevant Person's Representative has the right to bring it. Show the evaluator that your reports are written to be read by a judge, with your quality-assurance and peer-review steps named.
The pitfalls most likely to cost you marks
The avoidable ones, mostly about the law.
NOTE: this is a tender about the Mental Capacity Act 2005 itself, so a single wrong phrase can undermine an otherwise strong answer!
The most common own goal is statutory drift. Bidders write "four-part test" when the Act sets a two-stage test. They say LPS has replaced DoLS when it has not. They cite the Care Act 2014 as the source of the safeguards when the source is Schedule A1 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Each slip tells a DoLS evaluator that the bidder does not do this work often.
The second trap is generic assessor evidence. A stack of CVs is not evidence of competence. Evaluators want the BIA approval, the post-registration experience, the current refresher training, the indemnity and the registration checks, tied to named roles rather than asserted in the abstract.
The third is silence on independence and conflicts. The whole reason a council buys independent assessors is to remove conflict and add capacity. A bid that does not spell out how you screen each referral for a conflict of interest, and what you do when you find one, leaves marks on the table.
The fourth is ignoring the clocks. If your answer never mentions the seven-day urgent authorisation or the 21-day standard window, the evaluator cannot tell whether you will keep the council lawful. A TenderLab pre-submission review catches these gaps before a bid is submitted.
The win-rate playbook for this framework
Seven moves that move the score.
- Mirror the specification. Answer every sub-question in the order it is asked, in the council's own language, so nothing goes unanswered. This is the single biggest driver of scores in our care sector bid writing.
- Evidence assessor competence by name. For each assessor, give the profession, the years of post-registration experience, the approved BIA training and refresher date, the indemnity and the registration status. Competence you can audit beats competence you assert.
- Show the turnaround maths. Set out how many referrals you can take a week, how you triage urgent cases inside seven days, and how you hold standard authorisations inside the 21-day window when demand rises.
- Prove legal command with a worked example. Walk one anonymised case from referral to authorisation, showing the two-stage capacity test, the Cheshire West acid test, best interests and the least restrictive option applied in practice.
- Name your quality assurance. Peer review, legal sign-off, audit against the DoLS Code of Practice, and how you handle a Section 21A challenge or a Relevant Person's Representative query. Test a draft answer with score your draft response before you finalise it.
- Deal with independence head on. Describe your conflict-of-interest screen on every referral and your escalation route when an assessor cannot act.
- Show capability without overreaching. For a like-for-capability rather than like-for-cohort match, our Dorset Council open framework case study shows how we handle multi-service professional frameworks.
Mobilisation from November 2026 and the annual reopening
Thirty days, then a yearly door.
The framework runs from 1 November 2026, so expect a mobilisation window of around 30 days before go-live, when the council confirms vetting, indemnity, systems access and referral routing. Have your DBS checks, professional registrations and information-governance arrangements ready to evidence, not still in progress.
After go-live, the contract is managed against the statutory expectations of DoLS, because the deliverable is lawful assessments completed on time. Keep your assessor records, refresher training and indemnity current throughout, because a lapse mid-contract is a compliance problem, not an admin one.
The annual reopening changes how you should think about timing. Missing the 1 September 2026 deadline is a setback, not a lockout. If you are not ready this cycle, use the year to build the evidence and enter clean at the next window, and keep an eye on this and other live care tenders we track so it does not catch you cold.
Frequently asked questions
What is the East Riding Best Interest Assessors 2025 framework?
It is a framework contract from East Riding of Yorkshire Council for independent Best Interest Assessors who complete Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards assessments under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 for vulnerable adults. It is worth £2.5032m ex VAT and runs from 1 November 2026, with bids closing at 12:00 on 1 September 2026.
When is the tender deadline?
Submissions close at 12:00 on 1 September 2026, under Find a Tender reference 047637-2025. Because this is a Light Touch framework that reopens to new suppliers each year and is evaluated once a year, missing this window delays entry by roughly a year rather than closing the door for good.
How is the framework scored?
The award criteria are split 50% price and 50% quality. On a professional-services framework where rates tend to cluster, the quality method statements usually decide who ranks where. Strong written answers on legal command, turnaround and report quality carry more weight than a marginally lower rate.
Who can act as a Best Interest Assessor?
A Best Interest Assessor is a defined role under the DoLS Regulations. The assessor must be an experienced social worker, nurse, occupational therapist or psychologist with at least two years of post-registration experience, who has completed approved BIA training, keeps it current, and is appointed by the Supervisory Body, which is the local authority.
Do the Liberty Protection Safeguards apply to this contract?
No. The Liberty Protection Safeguards were legislated for but never implemented, so DoLS under Schedule A1 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 remains the operating framework. Any bid that treats LPS as being in force has misread the current legal position and risks losing evaluator confidence on the first read.
What statutory timescales apply to DoLS assessments?
DoLS runs on statutory clocks. A managing authority can grant an urgent authorisation lasting up to seven days while it requests a standard authorisation, and the standard authorisation assessment should be completed within the 21-day statutory window. Your bid should show how you hold these timescales under volume.
Book a free consultation on this tender
Not sure whether to bid, or how to lift your quality score?
We write specification-mirrored method statements with named operational evidence, correct statutory grounding and a pre-submission review built in. TenderLab is a sector-exclusive UK health and social care bid-writing consultancy with a 92% win rate across 200+ submissions, written by evaluator-trained writers who mostly began on the frontline before joining us. Companies House 17184263.
Book a free consultation on the East Riding Best Interest Assessors framework, whether or not we turn out to be the right fit for it. We will tell you honestly whether the bid is worth your time and where your marks will come from.