Eastbourne Off The Street Offer Tender 2026 Scoring Guide
Eastbourne's Off The Street Offer tender closes 28 August 2026. See the 45/30/10/10/5 scoring split and how to bid. 92% win rate across 200+ care submissions.
Image: A person supported off the street, illustrating Eastbourne Borough Council's rough sleeper accommodation contract.
Eastbourne Off The Street Offer: rough sleeper tender 2026
By the TenderLab Bid Team. Last updated 6 August 2026.
Eastbourne Borough Council has put its Off The Street Offer out to open tender, and providers have until 23:59 on 28 August 2026 to respond. The contract block-books a minimum of 10 units of off-street accommodation for people sleeping rough, with housing management staff and maintenance included, running from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2029.
Tender at a glance
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- Commissioning authority: Eastbourne Borough Council
- Contract: EBC - Off The Street Offer
- What it covers: Block-booked off-street accommodation for people sleeping rough, minimum 10 units, with housing management staff and maintenance
- Value: £595k ex VAT (£714k inc VAT)
- Term: 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2029 (2.5 years)
- Procedure: Open, single lot
- Region: East Sussex (UKJ22)
- Award criteria: Understanding of Brief and Contract Management 45%, Risk Management 30%, Proposed Team 10%, Case Study / Relevant Experience 10%, Social Value 5%
- Deadline: 28 August 2026, 23:59
- Find a Tender reference: 069429-2026
- Source notice: Find a Tender notice 069429-2026
For some providers this is a natural extension of accommodation they already run. For others it is a first move into commissioned rough sleeping provision. For a few it is a defensive bid to hold ground they already hold.
But the scoring is where this contract is won or lost. Eastbourne has weighted the award towards two categories - Understanding of Brief and Contract Management at 45%, and Risk Management at 30% - which together decide three-quarters of your marks before team, experience or social value are counted.
This guide sets out what the Off The Street Offer contract covers, the statutory framework that applies to rough sleeper accommodation in England, where the marks actually sit, and the specific moves that lift a score on a block-booked accommodation contract like this one.
Skip ahead to uncover:
- What the Off The Street Offer actually asks providers to run
- This is housing-related support, not a CQC-regulated service
- Understanding of brief and risk carry three-quarters of the marks
- What Eastbourne's evaluators will reward, and what they will mark down
- The mistakes that cost bidders marks on rough sleeping contracts
- Seven moves that lift your score on the Off The Street Offer
- Mobilisation from 1 October 2026 and the contract management regime
- Frequently asked questions
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What the Off The Street Offer actually asks providers to run
A block-booked bed base. Eastbourne pays to reserve at least 10 units of accommodation so that its rough sleeping pathway always has somewhere to place someone, whether or not every unit is filled on a given night. That guaranteed access is the whole point of a block booking, and it is what separates this from spot-purchased nightly beds.
The provider supplies three things: the accommodation itself, the housing management staff who run it, and the maintenance that keeps it safe and lettable. This is accommodation with management wrapped around it, not a clinical or personal care service.
"Off the street" describes the job the council needs done. People are moved off the streets quickly and given a stable base from which longer-term housing and support can be arranged. It sits in the same family as No Second Night Out and the wider rough sleeping response, and it is designed to interrupt a rough sleeping episode rather than to warehouse people.
Allocation will run through the council's rough sleeping and outreach route rather than open referral, so your answer needs to show how you take a referral, get someone into a room the same day where needed, and keep the outreach team informed. Confirm the exact allocation mechanism in the specification before you write to it.
Spread on a straight-line basis, £595k ex VAT across 30 months and a floor of 10 units works out at a little over £450 per unit per week before you model voids, staffing ratios and maintenance. Treat that only as a sense-check on affordability. The council has not published a unit rate here, and your cost model should be built bottom-up from your real staffing and property costs.
This is housing-related support, not a CQC-regulated service
It is not regulated by the Care Quality Commission. Providing accommodation with housing management and maintenance is housing-related support, not a "regulated activity" under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. No personal care is being commissioned here, so the service itself does not trigger CQC registration, and it is not an Ofsted matter either because this is adult provision.
Get the statutory frame right instead. Rough sleeper accommodation in England sits within the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which amended Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and introduced the prevention duty, the relief duty and the duty to refer. The commissioning context is the government's Rough Sleeping Initiative and its Ending rough sleeping for good strategy, which is why councils block-book off-street beds in the first place.
Safeguarding needs to be pointed the right way round. Where a resident has care and support needs and is at risk of abuse or neglect, adult safeguarding under the Care Act 2014 applies. It is the local authority that makes or causes a Section 42 enquiry. Your role is to recognise the concern, raise the alert, cooperate fully and evidence what you did. A bid that claims the provider "leads Section 42 enquiries" tells the evaluator you do not understand the framework.
The practice model evaluators expect is a trauma-informed and psychologically informed environment, usually shortened to PIE. A PIE is a service consciously designed and run to take account of the psychological and emotional needs of people who have experienced trauma, homelessness and multiple disadvantage. In practice that means reflective practice for staff, relationship-based key working, and an environment that reduces the chance of someone being excluded back onto the street. Use the language accurately, and show the mechanism behind it rather than the label alone.
Understanding of brief and risk carry three-quarters of the marks
The published award criteria are weighted as follows: Understanding of Brief and Contract Management 45%, Risk Management 30%, Proposed Team 10%, Case Study and Relevant Experience 10%, and Social Value 5%. Add the top two together and 75% of the marks turn on how well you understand the service and how you run it.
Understanding of Brief and Contract Management (45%) is the heart of the bid. Expect it to test whether you grasp the off-street model, the block-booking commitment, the council's referral and allocation route, void and occupancy management, planned move-on, and the reporting and performance regime. Contract management is the second half of that heading, so cover mobilisation, performance reporting, escalation routes and how you work alongside the outreach team.
Risk Management (30%) is the register the council genuinely worries about. That means safeguarding adults, self-harm and suicide risk, substance use and overdose, mental ill health and self-neglect, anti-social behaviour and neighbour impact, abandonment and void turnaround, lone working and staff safety, fire and building safety, and severe weather. Name the risk, name the control, name who owns it.
Proposed Team (10%) asks for your housing management staffing model - ratios, hours of cover, competence, recruitment and training such as trauma-informed practice, safeguarding, mental health awareness and naloxone - plus the maintenance capability behind the repairs promise.
Case Study and Relevant Experience (10%) wants a comparable contract with the same cohort and model. Social Value (5%) wants something local and measurable. Read the actual ITT for the precise question wording and word counts before you write; the weightings above are the published split, not the questions themselves.
What Eastbourne's evaluators will reward, and what they will mark down
Specificity. Evaluators on housing-related support contracts reward named mechanisms, named roles and named timeframes. A referral-to-room timeline, a void turnaround target, a reflective practice cycle with a frequency attached, a safeguarding lead with a job title - these are the details that move a 3 to a 5.
They reward a realistic occupancy plan. Block-booked models live or die on flow, so an answer that shows how you keep 10 units moving through referral, stay and planned move-on will always beat one that treats the beds as static. They reward genuine partnership with named local pathways for drug and alcohol treatment, mental health, GP registration, benefits and move-on accommodation, provided you actually hold those relationships.
They mark down generic assurance. "We are person-centred and flexible" with no mechanism behind it scores nothing. They mark down care-home language pasted onto a housing contract, blanket exclusion policies that simply move risk back to the street, staffing models that do not add up, and any answer that has no plan for the hardest few residents with entrenched rough sleeping and multiple disadvantage.
When we supported a bid on the Dorset Council care, support and housing framework, the pattern that scored was the same one Eastbourne will reward here: every claim carried a named system, a responsible role and a measurable outcome, and every cohort risk had a control written against it.
The mistakes that cost bidders marks on rough sleeping contracts
Regulator contamination is the first. Writing as though you are CQC-registered, quoting CQC fundamental standards or "well-led" language on a housing-related support contract, signals immediately that you have not understood the service. There is no care regulator to satisfy here; there is a housing and homelessness framework.
Wrong-cohort case studies are the second. A learning disability supported living example or an older people's home care example does not evidence capability to run off-street accommodation for people sleeping rough. Match the cohort exactly or the 10% for experience leaks away.
Exclusion by default is the third, and it is the most damaging. Policies that discharge risk to the street undermine the entire purpose of an "off the street" offer, and an evaluator reading a section on managing anti-social behaviour will look hard for whether your first instinct is eviction or de-escalation.
The rest are familiar. Underplaying voids and move-on silts up a block-booked model. Ignoring severe weather duties, when the contract starts in October, reads as naive about winter pressure. Pointing safeguarding the wrong way round, claiming the provider leads Section 42 enquiries, is a factual error. And forgetting the maintenance and repairs answer misses a requirement that is written into the brief.
Seven moves that lift your score on the Off The Street Offer
- Mirror the specification and the weighting. Put your strongest, most quantified evidence against the 45% and 30% headings, and match the order and language of the published questions so the evaluator can score you fast.
- Name the PIE model and its mechanism. Do not just say "psychologically informed". Describe the reflective practice sessions, the supervision model and the key working approach that make it real.
- Build a credible occupancy and void plan. Give a referral-to-room timeline, a turnaround target for a vacated unit, and a move-on approach that keeps the 10 units flowing rather than blocked.
- Route safeguarding correctly. Alert to the local authority, cooperate with any Section 42 enquiry, and name your safeguarding lead and the training your staff hold.
- Evidence real partnership working. Reference the local drug and alcohol treatment service, mental health pathway, primary care registration and benefits support you actually work with, and how you coordinate them around one resident.
- Commit to a maintenance and repairs standard. Give response times for urgent repairs, a planned maintenance approach, and how you keep units warm, safe and quickly re-let.
- Make social value local and measurable. Lived-experience roles, local recruitment and tenancy sustainment outcomes beat boilerplate. Tie the 5% to Eastbourne, not to a national mission statement.
Most of these are won on evidence rather than intent, which is where a specialist bid writing team for housing and homelessness contracts earns its fee. If you are drafting in-house, run the answers through our pre-submission review so a second evaluator-trained reader marks them before the deadline, or score your draft answers against the weighting before you commit them.
Mobilisation from 1 October 2026 and the contract management regime
Mobilisation is tight. Award to go-live on 1 October 2026 leaves a short window, and the council will expect units ready and safe, staff recruited and trained, and core policies signed off before the first referral arrives. Have your safeguarding, anti-social behaviour, health and safety, fire and PIE policies ready, and agree the referral and allocation route with the outreach team in the first fortnight.
Winter arrives with the contract. An October start means severe weather provision needs to be operational from day one, not bolted on in December, so build it into your mobilisation plan and your staffing rota.
Once live, expect the contract to run on occupancy and void reporting, safeguarding and incident reporting, move-on tracking, repairs performance and periodic contract review meetings. Commit to the reporting and performance regime set out in the contract rather than inventing KPI figures the council has not published; a bidder who promises numbers that are not in the specification looks as unprepared as one who ignores performance altogether.
Frequently asked questions
When is the Eastbourne Off The Street Offer tender deadline?
Bids must be submitted by 23:59 on 28 August 2026 through the Find a Tender process under notice reference 069429-2026. The contract runs from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2029, so mobilisation follows almost immediately after award, leaving a short window to be operational.
How much is the Off The Street Offer contract worth?
The contract is valued at £595k ex VAT, which is £714k inc VAT, across the full 2.5-year term from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2029. It block-books a minimum of 10 units of off-street accommodation, so your cost model should be built bottom-up from real staffing, property and maintenance costs.
Is the Off The Street Offer a CQC-registered service?
No. It is housing-related support, not a regulated activity under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, so it does not require CQC registration and is not an Ofsted matter. Where a resident has care and support needs, adult safeguarding under the Care Act 2014 applies, led by the local authority.
How is the Off The Street Offer tender scored?
The published award criteria are Understanding of Brief and Contract Management 45%, Risk Management 30%, Proposed Team 10%, Case Study and Relevant Experience 10%, and Social Value 5%. The top two categories decide three-quarters of the marks, so your strongest evidence belongs there.
What statutory framework applies to rough sleeper accommodation in England?
Rough sleeper accommodation sits within the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which amended Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and introduced the prevention duty, relief duty and duty to refer. The commissioning context is the government's Rough Sleeping Initiative and the Ending rough sleeping for good strategy.
How many units does the Off The Street Offer require?
The contract block-books a minimum of 10 units of off-street accommodation for people sleeping rough. The provider supplies the accommodation, the housing management staff who run it and the maintenance that keeps it safe and lettable. Block-booking guarantees the council access whether or not every unit is filled nightly.
Where can I find the official Off The Street Offer notice?
The notice is published on the Find a Tender service under reference 069429-2026, at find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/069429-2026. Always work from the published ITT, specification and any clarification log rather than a summary, because the exact question wording and word counts sit in those documents.
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