Haringey Home Support DPS: How Providers Join and Win Contracts

The Haringey Home Support DPS is the Dynamic Purchasing System through which the London Borough of Haringey commissions home support for adults and for children aged 0-18. It is worth up to £250 million, more than 30 London boroughs and four Home Counties can buy from it, and it admits providers on a rolling basis rather than at a single closing date.

If you deliver home support, reablement or family support in London or the Home Counties, this is one of the largest single routes to that work. This analysis sets out what the DPS actually requires, how onboarding is scored, how mini competitions are won, and where providers gain or lose their place. It is written for owners, registered managers and bid leads deciding whether to onboard and how to score well when they do.

The essentials:

1. Buyer: London Borough of Haringey, with 30+ boroughs and Home Counties councils able to buy under access agreements
2. Value: up to £250 million
3. Structure: two service categories, adults' home support and children's home support (0-18), each with sub-categories
4. Onboarding: register, then submit the Selection Questionnaire, service-specific questions and, for children's, a scored method statement
5. Award: mini competitions on most economically advantageous terms, weighted 60% price and 40% quality

Tender at a glance

Authority: London Borough of Haringey (plus 30+ London boroughs and Hertfordshire, Essex, Bedfordshire and Berkshire by access agreement)

Reference: Contracts Finder 9d68a33a-1422-480a-9388-1d34bdb98a3a

Commercial tool: Dynamic Purchasing System, on the Axians (LCP) portal

Estimated value: £250,000,000

Service categories: Adults' home support; Children's home support (0-18)

Onboarding: register, then submit SQ + service-specific questions + children's method statement

Award (mini competition): most economically advantageous, 60% price and 40% quality

Financial score: out of 40; a score of 15 or below eliminates

CQC gate: Good or Outstanding required to onboard and to stay enrolled

Cohort: adults (Care Act 2014, CQC) and children 0-18 (Children Acts, London Child Protection Procedures)

Why the Haringey Home Support DPS matters now

The prize on this DPS is unusually large. Onboard once and you are visible not only to Haringey but to more than 30 London boroughs and any local authority in Hertfordshire, Essex, Bedfordshire and Berkshire that has an access agreement in place. Few single-borough contracts open a market that wide.

It also spans two worlds under one system: adults' home support and reablement, and children's home support including family support and specialist therapeutic services. A provider that can deliver across both, or deeply in one, can build a substantial pipeline from a single onboarding.

Because it is a Dynamic Purchasing System, the practical question is not a deadline but readiness. You can apply at any time, but a rejection on the scored elements locks you out for 6 months, so a first submission that clears the gates first time is worth the preparation.

How a DPS works: rolling onboarding, then mini competitions

A Dynamic Purchasing System is an open electronic list of approved providers that refreshes continuously. You apply to join rather than racing a single closing date, and once admitted you compete for specific packages. If you want the wider picture of how this compares to a framework or spot purchasing, our guide to frameworks, DPS and approved provider lists explains each route, and framework vs DPS vs spot contract sets out when each one wins care work.

The process runs in two parts. Onboarding is where the evaluation happens: you register, complete the Selection Questionnaire and service-specific questions, upload named policies, and, for children's categories, answer a scored method statement. Mini competitions are where contracts are won: the Council issues a request for specific services in a chosen sub-category, and admitted providers bid.

You select which sub-categories to apply for, and your choice controls which mini competitions you see. There is no limit on how many you select, but you must be able to deliver each one you pick.

The service categories: adults and children's home support

The DPS is divided into two categories, each with sub-categories.

Adults' home support covers Home Support, Reablement, Out of Borough, and Bundled Hours. Children's home support (0-18) covers Home Support, Reablement, Family Support, Out of Borough, and Specialist Family Therapeutic Support Services. You can add sub-categories later through the portal, and each addition is evaluated against the same entry criteria.

The children's categories carry more onboarding weight than the adults' categories, because they attract a scored method statement and a distinct set of safeguarding requirements. If children's services are your focus, our guide to winning children's home and children's services tenders covers the evidence commissioners look for.

Who the service is for: cohort and statutory context

Two distinct cohorts, two statutory frameworks, and they have to stay separate in every answer.

Adults' home support is personal care and reablement in a person's own home. It is a regulated activity under the Care Act 2014, and where capacity is in question the Mental Capacity Act 2005 applies, with its 5 statutory principles and 2-stage capacity test. Safeguarding runs under Care Act 2014 Section 42, where the local authority makes or causes the enquiry and the provider secures safety, records, refers, shares information and supports it.

Children's home support (0-18) is support to children, young people and families in their own homes, including children with disabilities and young people with disruptive and challenging behaviour. It is safeguarded under the Children Acts and the London Child Protection Procedures, with enhanced DBS checks, a Named Senior Officer for child protection, child protection training within induction, and safer recruitment throughout.

Keeping the split clean is itself a scoring signal. This is home support in family homes, not a children's home or 16-plus supported accommodation, so Ofsted supported-accommodation language does not belong here. If the regulator boundaries are unclear, our explainer on CQC vs Ofsted sets out which regulator governs which service.

Before you bid: the questions to ask yourself

A rejection on the scored elements locks you out of this DPS for 6 months, so qualify yourself honestly before you onboard. If the answer is no, fix it first.

• Do we hold a CQC rating of Good or Outstanding? Anything below is a fail, and a newly registered, uninspected provider is rejected until it is inspected at that level.
• Is our financial position likely to score above 15 out of 40? Check your Experian BusIQ report before the Council pulls it.
• Do we hold Employers' Liability £10m, Public Liability £10m and Professional Indemnity £2m?
• Can we evidence up to 3 relevant contracts from the last 3 years, each with a referee willing to confirm them?
• For children's categories, can we pass the method statement at 3 or above and work to the London Child Protection Procedures?
• Can we price and staff the sub-categories and boroughs we select? Breadth only helps if you can deliver it.

If those are all yes, you are eligible. Turning eligibility into won mini competitions is the next question, and where a Pre-Submission Review and Score My Response earn their place.

Onboarding: what you need to qualify

Onboarding is a Selection Questionnaire in three parts, plus service-specific questions and, for children's, a scored method statement.

Part 1 gathers your organisation details; it is information only, but false or missing information can exclude you. Part 2 is the mandatory and discretionary exclusion self-declarations, scored pass or fail. Part 3 covers economic and financial standing, technical and professional ability, insurance, data protection, health and safety, payment practices, and the service-specific policies.

Several elements are hard gates. Economic and financial standing is scored out of 40 using an Experian BusIQ (Generation 4) Delphi report across net profit margin, current asset ratio, return on capital employed, gearing and a risk analysis worth up to 20 points; a score of 15 or below eliminates you. Contract examples ask for up to 3 relevant contracts from the last 3 years, each with a named contact prepared to confirm them, scored pass or fail. Insurance requires Employers' Liability at £10 million, Public Liability at £10 million and Professional Indemnity at £2 million. Payment practices require over 95% of supply-chain invoices paid within 60 days, or a proper action plan. You also upload named policies, safeguarding for adults and for children, infection control, business continuity and health and safety, which the commissioning team spot-checks.

The CQC gate: why most rejections happen here

The single hardest gate is your Care Quality Commission rating. A rating below Good or Outstanding is a Fail. If you are newly CQC-registered but not yet inspected, the Council rejects the onboarding until an inspection awards Good or Outstanding. There is no way to write around this one, and it applies to both the adults' and children's categories.

The rule bites after admission too. If an enrolled provider's rating drops below Good or Outstanding, that service category is suspended until the rating recovers. Pending safeguarding investigations also stop an application until they are resolved. In practice, timing your onboarding to your inspection, and protecting your rating once you are on, is the most important thing you can do on this DPS. Our guide to what CQC rating you need to bid sets out how commissioners use ratings as eligibility gates.

How contracts are won: mini competitions at 60% price and 40% quality

Onboarding earns you the right to bid. Contracts are won in mini competitions on the sourcing portal, and the award maths is the opposite of what many providers assume.

Mini competitions are awarded on the most economically advantageous tender, weighted 60% price and 40% quality. You confirm you can meet the pass or fail criteria, price the specified hours, and answer Outcome Statements: free-text questions scored from 0 to 5 on how you will meet the person's needs and outcomes. Price is scored by formula, best price divided by your price, multiplied by the price weighting.

Because price carries 60%, your cost model matters. But the 40% quality is where close competitions are decided, and the Council can reject a bid that does not show how outcomes will be achieved for the person, even at a strong price. You can revise a bid as many times as you like inside the tender open period, and the Council may apply a voluntary 10-day standstill before a contract starts.

Pricing realism

Price carries the majority of the score at mini competition, so a lean, accurate cost model is central rather than optional. You are pricing specified hours for a named package, so the realism question is whether you can staff those hours, in that location, at the rate you bid, and still deliver the outcomes the quality answer promises.

The trap is underpricing to win and then failing to deliver, which risks suspension and damages your standing for future competitions. Our guide to pricing a domiciliary care tender walks through building a defensible rate. Because these are individual packages rather than a block contract, model your true cost per package, including travel across the boroughs you have chosen to cover.

The scoring battlegrounds in depth

Onboarding and mini competitions reward different evidence, and both need to be right.

At onboarding, the battlegrounds are the CQC rating, the financial score out of 40 and, for children's, the method statement. The method statement is scored on a 0 to 5 matrix; you need at least a 3 (Acceptable) to pass, and a 2 (Minor Reservations) or below fails the children's application. It asks how you will mobilise and run a safe, good-quality service for children with disabilities and challenging behaviour, and how you support children and families from assessment and support planning through delivery to review.

At mini competition, the battleground is the Outcome Statement. A competitive price with a thin, generic quality answer loses winnable work, because the answer has to show how the person's outcomes are achieved. Strong Outcome Statements start from the person's goals and evidence how your delivery, review and escalation meet them. The discipline of writing method statements that win care contracts applies directly to these free-text answers.

The TenderLab perspective: what an evaluator reads first

Evaluators reward evidence they can verify and outcomes framed around the person. Across 200+ submissions in comparable adults' and children's contracts, the highest-scoring answers share the same features.

They name roles, systems and records: a registered manager, a Named Senior Officer for child protection, an electronic call-monitoring or case-recording system, a supervision cycle with dates. They lead Outcome Statements with the person's goals rather than a description of the organisation. Where children's categories are in scope, they show real experience of children with disabilities and challenging behaviour, safe mobilisation, and joined-up work with families and social workers. And they keep compliance clean and current, because on this DPS a Good or Outstanding rating, in-date policies and a healthy Experian position are not admin, they are the score.

Common pitfalls that cost providers a place

Four failures recur, and most are avoidable.

Applying without the CQC rating is the most common: newly registered and uninspected providers are rejected until they hold Good or Outstanding. Underestimating the financial gate is the quietest, where providers treat the accounts upload as a formality and score 15 or below without realising it eliminates them. A generic children's method statement, reused from adult content or written about the organisation rather than the child and family journey, drops to a 2 and fails. And regulator or cohort contamination, adult safeguarding language in a children's answer or Ofsted wording in a home support bid, signals a reused template and invites the debrief no provider wants.

Win-rate playbook

A place on the DPS is the start. These moves turn it into won hours.

Fix compliance before you apply: confirm a Good or Outstanding CQC rating, in-date insurance at the required levels, and a clean Experian position. Choose sub-categories you can truly deliver, because breadth increases the mini competitions you see but overreaching into children's or specialist therapeutic work you cannot staff damages you fast. Write the children's method statement from the child outward, through assessment, support planning, delivery and review, with named safeguarding ownership. Build reusable Outcome Statement content for the recurring needs you support. Model your true cost of delivery so your 60% price score is competitive on work you can actually staff. And keep everything in date, because expired policies or insurance trigger automatic suspension from receiving mini competitions.

Our work on the Essex domiciliary framework spanned exactly this kind of adults' home care route, where the winning move was specification-mirrored answers with named operational evidence rather than volume of words.

Maintaining enrolment: annual review and CQC monitoring

Membership is conditional and monitored. The Council runs an annual financial reassessment within two months of your DPS anniversary, using a fresh Experian check; a score of 15 or below is referred for review and can suspend you from new mini competitions while you keep existing contracts.

Your CQC rating is watched throughout. A drop below Good or Outstanding suspends the affected service category until it recovers, and expired documents, safeguarding concerns and failed quality spot-checks can all suspend you. Providers who hold their place treat compliance as continuous: Good or Outstanding maintained, policies refreshed on time, insurance never lapsed, and delivery that matches the outcomes promised at bid.

Key facts and how to apply

Onboarding runs through the Haringey sourcing portal built with Axians. You register the first user, complete your company profile, then build and submit the onboarding: the Selection Questionnaire, service-specific questions, uploaded policies and, for children's categories, the method statement.

Because it is a Dynamic Purchasing System, you can apply at any time, and the DPS runs for years, so there is no single public deadline. The practical constraint is the 6-month lockout on a rejected scored submission, which makes a right-first-time application worth the preparation. Confirm the current portal details on the Contracts Finder notice before you begin.

TenderLab writes specification-mirrored onboarding answers and outcome-led mini-competition responses with named operational evidence, and stress-tests them with a 72-hour pre-submission review before you submit. 92% win rate across 200+ UK health and social care submissions, from evaluator-trained writers with care sector experience. TenderLab, Companies House 17184263. Book a free consultation on this tender to talk through your Haringey onboarding, whether or not we are the right fit for it.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Haringey Home Support DPS open to new providers? Yes. A Dynamic Purchasing System stays open across its life and admits providers continuously, so you can apply at any time on the sourcing portal. A rejection on the scored elements, however, locks you out for 6 months, so it is worth getting the first submission right.

Do I need a CQC rating of Good or Outstanding to join? Yes. A rating below Good or Outstanding is a Fail, and newly registered providers who have not yet been inspected are rejected until an inspection awards Good or Outstanding. It applies to both the adults' and children's categories, and a later drop below Good suspends the affected category.

How is the financial assessment scored? Economic and financial standing is scored out of 40 using an Experian BusIQ Delphi report across net profit margin, current asset ratio, ROCE, gearing and a risk analysis. A score of 15 or below eliminates you, so check your own report on the same product before the Council pulls it.

How are mini competitions won on this DPS? Contracts are awarded on the most economically advantageous tender, weighted 60% price and 40% quality. You price the specified hours and answer free-text Outcome Statements scored 0 to 5. A bid that does not show how outcomes will be achieved can be rejected even at a good price.

Which boroughs can buy from the DPS? More than 30 London boroughs plus any local authority in Hertfordshire, Essex, Bedfordshire and Berkshire can award contracts under the DPS through an access agreement. That reach is why one onboarding can open a large market across adults' and children's home support.

Can a bid writer help with a DPS onboarding? Yes. Onboarding turns on financial standing, CQC compliance, contract examples and a scored children's method statement, and mini competitions turn on outcome-led Outcome Statements. A specialist care-sector bid writer builds exactly this evidence, and a pre-submission review catches the regulator and cohort slips before you submit.

Related reading

• How to win children's home and children's services tenders
• Framework vs DPS vs spot contract: which route wins care work
• What CQC rating do you need to bid for care contracts?
• How to write method statements that win care contracts
• Score My Response: check your answer before you submit
• Domiciliary care bid writing and framework support

Further reading

• Contracts Finder: Haringey Home Support DPS notice
• Care Quality Commission
• London Child Protection Procedures
• Working Together to Safeguard Children (gov.uk)