The Herefordshire Council Supported Living Approved List is one of the few care commissioning routes in the West Midlands that stays open continuously to new providers, which makes it both a long-term placement pipeline and a market entry point if your operating footprint already touches Herefordshire.

For some providers, it is the obvious next step. For others, the geographic and regulatory fit is wrong from the start. In a few cases, the right move is to qualify for the list and bid only on call-offs that match the cohort you already deliver well.

But the qualification rules are not simple. They are run as a Light Touch arrangement under the Procurement Act 2023, which means lighter procurement procedure but tighter expectations on how you evidence quality, CQC compliance, Care Act 2014 alignment and operational readiness.

This guide explains what the Herefordshire Supported Living Approved List actually is, the cohort and statutory context that frames every call-off, the key scoring battlegrounds providers underestimate, the evaluator-side pitfalls that lose marks, and the win-rate playbook we apply on similar approved-list submissions.

What is the Herefordshire Supported Living Approved List?

It is an open, continuously refreshed list of providers approved to deliver supported living in Herefordshire. Once qualified, you become eligible for call-off opportunities as commissioners place individual packages, voids and new referrals.

The arrangement is run under the Procurement Act 2023 Light Touch Regime, which applies to social and other specific services listed in Schedule 1 of the Act. Light Touch means Herefordshire Council can use a simpler procurement procedure with fewer fixed timing rules. It does not mean the qualification standard is lower. The Council still has to act in line with the principles of equal treatment, non-discrimination, transparency and proportionality.

The arrangement is open-ended. The deadline on Contracts Finder lists 26 February 2038 because the list is intended to operate as a long-running framework, with providers joining or leaving across the contract term. New entrants are assessed when they apply rather than at a single tender window.

NOTE: this format is closer to a Pseudo Dynamic Purchasing System (PDPS) than a traditional one-off tender. It rewards providers who can keep qualification paperwork current year on year and respond fast when call-offs land!

Two things matter from day one. First, the qualification submission is the only marketing document you will get. Once you are on the list, the Council buys from you on the strength of how you described your service when you joined. Second, call-offs typically go to the provider whose described capability most closely matches the individual referral - not necessarily the largest provider on the list.

Who is the cohort and what statutory framework applies?

The cohort is adults aged 18 and over who need a personal support service to live as independently as possible in their own tenancy. The most common groups are:

• Adults with a learning disability or autism, often in transition from children's services or moving on from residential care.
• Adults with enduring mental health needs stepping down from secondary mental health services.
• Adults with physical disabilities or sensory impairment needing personal care alongside daily living support.
• Adults with complex behavioural needs where a Positive Behaviour Support framework is the service backbone.

The statutory framework is Care Act 2014 for assessment, eligibility and care planning. Section 18 (the duty to meet eligible needs) and Section 9 (assessment of needs) frame every package. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 sits next to the Care Act on every individual - its 5 statutory principles and 2-stage capacity test apply to every significant decision the person makes about their support.

Where the package crosses into regulated personal care, CQC registration is required and the call-off will assess your current rating. Where the service is non-registered enabling support inside the person's tenancy, CQC does not regulate the activity but the Council still expects the same quality assurance and safeguarding discipline.

Tenancy rights are not optional. Every Supported Living package in Herefordshire sits on a separate housing tenancy that belongs to the person, not to the care provider. The Housing Act 1985 and Localism Act 2011 frame those tenancies. The person can ask you to leave the service without losing their home.

What are the key scoring battlegrounds?

Light Touch qualifications usually score on five fronts. Get all five and you are on the list. Get one wrong and the application stalls.

1. CQC registration and regulatory standing. Herefordshire will check your latest CQC inspection report, your overall rating, the date of last inspection, and any active conditions or enforcement actions on your registration. If you are Requires Improvement or Inadequate, you can still qualify in some cases but the submission needs a credible improvement narrative supported by named actions, dates and an internal QA framework. If your most recent inspection was over two years ago, expect a clarification.

2. Local operating footprint. The Council will want named existing services or staff bases inside or close to Herefordshire. If you have no current presence in HR1, HR2, HR3, HR4, HR5, HR6, HR7, HR8 or HR9 postcodes, the application is harder. You can still qualify with a credible mobilisation plan but the submission has to evidence a real local recruitment route and a named locality manager you will appoint inside 30 days.

3. Workforce and recruitment evidence. Your application has to show how you will staff packages with named role definitions, your DBS and right-to-work process, induction and Care Certificate routes, your supervision and appraisal cadence, your retention rate and your contingency for short-notice cover. Generic "we recruit values-based staff" sentences score poorly. Named systems, named cycles, named retention figures score well.

4. Care planning and outcomes framework. Herefordshire expects an enabling, strengths-based approach. The submission has to show how you assess the person, how you build the support plan against Care Act outcomes, how you record progress against personalised goals, and how you involve the person and their circle in every review. Outcome Star, Recovery Star, Threshold of Need or a comparable framework named in the submission helps.

5. Quality assurance and safeguarding. The Council expects a registered safeguarding lead, a clear referral pathway into the Herefordshire Safeguarding Adults Board, a documented complaints and feedback process, and an internal audit cycle. Where you respond to a Section 42 enquiry, the wording has to be accurate - the local authority causes the enquiry to be made; the provider secures immediate safety, records, refers, shares information, supports the enquiry and contributes to the protection plan.

What is the TenderLab perspective on this opportunity?

The list is worth getting onto if Herefordshire is a real geographic priority, your CQC standing is at Good or above, and you can hold open capacity for call-offs without burning cash.

It is not worth pursuing if your closest registered office is more than 90 minutes away, your CQC rating is Inadequate, or you cannot afford to qualify without knowing the volume of call-offs you will see in year one. Herefordshire is a predominantly rural commissioning area. Travel time, lone working risk, mobile workforce supervision and recruitment from a smaller pool all bite harder than they do in metropolitan markets.

Where the fit is right, the long-running structure of the list rewards consistency. Providers who score well in year one tend to see call-offs in year two and three as commissioners learn to trust the way you describe your service. The list is essentially a long-form word-of-mouth route. What you wrote when you joined is what the commissioner reads when a referral matches.

Across 200+ submissions in UK health and social care, our pattern recognition on open approved lists is that the highest-scoring submissions almost always name a single accountable manager, a single primary care planning system, a single supervision cycle and a single audit cadence. Generality reads as weakness. Specificity reads as operational truth.

What pitfalls lose providers marks?

The five we see most often:

• Generic person-centred language. "We deliver person-centred, outcome-focused care tailored to each individual's unique needs" earns nothing. Name the assessment tool. Name the outcomes framework. Name the review cycle. Name the staff role accountable.
• Regulator contamination. Mixing Ofsted language into an adult social care submission, or referencing the wrong CQC Quality Statement. Herefordshire Supported Living sits under the adult social care CQC framework. The relevant Quality Statements are Caring, Responsive, Safe, Effective and Well-led, anchored on the SAFE statements and the QSIRG Single Assessment Framework.
• Vague workforce numbers. "We have an experienced team" with no headcount, no ratio, no turnover figure, no retention rate. The Council needs to see whether you can actually staff a package.
• Mobilisation hand-waving. "We will mobilise quickly using our established processes" is not a plan. The Council expects a phased 30-day mobilisation against named milestones - assessment, care plan, staff matching, induction, key worker assignment, first review.
• Missing tenancy detail. Confusing residential care with supported living. Every package in this list sits on a separate Housing Act tenancy. The submission has to evidence how you support tenancy rights, how you respond if the person breaches the tenancy, and how you keep the support service legally separate from the housing.

What is the win-rate playbook for getting on the list?

Six approaches we apply on every comparable Light Touch supported living submission:

1. Open every method statement with a 1-2 sentence direct answer. The evaluator scoring a Light Touch submission usually has dozens to read. Front-loading the answer means they can score 5/5 inside the first 100 words and read the rest as confirmation.

2. Name your operational mechanism in every paragraph. Named manager. Named system. Named cycle. Named threshold. Named audit. We track every paragraph against a 4-anchor pattern (Approach, Mechanism, Frequency, Outcome). If a paragraph cannot answer all four, it gets rewritten.

3. Mirror the Council's vocabulary. Where the spec says "enabling", say enabling. Where it says "supporting people to live independently", use that phrase. Where it lists outcomes, write your method statement to land directly on those outcomes. Evaluator pattern-matching is a real scoring lift.

4. Embed one verified case example per scored section. A named, anonymised, real package outcome reads as proof in a way that policy summary cannot. The example needs five Ws (who, what, when, where, why) and an outcome quantifier. Our work on the Bedford Supported Living contract, for example, evidenced staffing flex around a high-anxiety autism package by detailing the named PBS approach, the named de-escalation sequence and the measured reduction in escalations over a 12-week window.

5. Show your QA dashboard. Where the platform allows attachments, include one redacted screenshot of your audit dashboard or QA scorecard. Light Touch submissions that include visible internal QA evidence consistently score higher than those that rely on policy text alone.

6. Submit the Tender Readiness Audit before you draft. Open approved lists reject submissions that fail qualification checks long before scoring begins. A short readiness audit catches missing insurance certificates, expired DBS policy versions, mis-numbered safeguarding policies and missing cyber controls before the submission goes in. Cheaper than losing the entry window.

What happens after qualification: mobilisation and call-offs?

Once you are on the list, the Council issues call-offs as individual packages come up. There is no guaranteed volume.

The first 30 days after qualification matter. Set up your named Herefordshire locality lead, register on the Council's preferred call-off portal, agree your contact protocol with the commissioning team, and confirm your tenancy and housing partner arrangements if you are bringing your own supported housing stock.

For each call-off, expect the commissioning team to send a referral pack with the person's assessment, eligibility decision, care plan summary, indicative budget and any safeguarding flags. Your turnaround on whether you can take the package should be inside 5 working days. Slow responses move call-offs to other providers on the list quickly.

The post-go-live KPI regime is light by call-off volume but heavy by individual outcome. Expect a quarterly contract management meeting, a documented person-centred review cycle inside the first 6 weeks of every package, and an annual contract review against the original submission.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Herefordshire Supported Living Approved List open to new providers now?

Yes. The list is structured as a long-running open arrangement under the Procurement Act 2023 Light Touch Regime, with new applications accepted across the contract term. The deadline on Contracts Finder of 26 February 2038 reflects the long-running nature of the list rather than a single submission window.

Do I need CQC registration to apply?

If your service involves regulated personal care, yes. CQC registration is mandatory for regulated activities. For non-regulated enabling and supported living support, CQC registration is not required - but the Council will still assess your quality assurance, safeguarding and workforce evidence to the same standard.

What CQC rating do I need to qualify?

Good or Outstanding is the safest position. Requires Improvement is workable with a credible improvement narrative. Inadequate is usually a barrier, though some cases turn on the specifics of the inspection and the remediation in place.

How is the list different from a framework or a DPS?

A Dynamic Purchasing System under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 had a strict process for entry and call-off. A framework has a fixed pool and fixed term. The Light Touch open list sits between the two - lighter procedure, continuous entry, and call-off based on capability match rather than fixed lot allocation.

Can I qualify without a local Herefordshire office?

Yes, but the submission needs a named mobilisation plan with a local recruitment route, a named locality manager appointment date and a credible explanation of how you will deliver care, supervision and emergency response across the geography.

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Not sure where to start on the Herefordshire Supported Living Approved List?

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We write specification-mirrored Light Touch submissions with named operational evidence and a 72-hour pre-submission review built in. 92% win rate across 200+ UK care submissions. Companies House 17184263.

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Book a free consultation to discuss whether this list is the right fit for your service (whether or not we are the right writers for it).

Further reading on the framework: Procurement Act 2023 Light Touch Regime and CQC Quality Statements for adult social care.

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