Sefton Council's Supported Living Framework is a 4-year adult social care framework, procured under the Procurement Act 2023 Light Touch regime, that will commission supported living, core and cluster housing, shared lives and support in people's own homes across nine geographical and specialist lots from 14 September 2026. Applications close at 11:00 on 19 June 2026 through The Chest.

Tender at a glance

Authority: Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council (Bootle, Merseyside)

Opportunity: Provision of Supported Living Services in Sefton (Framework)

Lots: 9 (seven geographical, two mental health)

Term: 4 years, 14 September 2026 to 13 September 2030

Estimated value: Not stated in the current published notice

Award criteria: Quality, Social Value and Price (weightings confirmed in the full ITT)

Submission deadline: 19 June 2026, 11:00

Procurement route: Procurement Act 2023, Light Touch regime

Reference: FTS 043273-2026, OCID ocds-h6vhtk-05e520

Portal: The Chest (ProContract / Due North)

Source: Find a Tender

What Sefton is commissioning

Supported living in Sefton is care and support delivered to adults in their own homes so they can live as independently as possible, with dependency reduced over time rather than maintained. The Council frames the service as a vital part of its Adult Social Care offer under the Care Act 2014, which places duties on the local authority for assessment, eligibility, wellbeing and shaping a diverse local market.

The scope is broad. It covers personal care and support for people with a wide range of needs in community settings, including accommodation-based supported living, core and cluster housing, shared lives and support to people living in their own or rented homes or with family. Provision runs across both short-term and long-term packages, with an explicit focus on progression, the development of life skills and recovery-focused models for people with mental health support needs. The Council expects services to create routes towards more independent forms of accommodation, not static placements.

Two facts shape eligibility before a single word of method statement is written. Personal care is a regulated activity, so providers bidding for care and support delivery need the relevant Care Quality Commission registration, and answers are read against the CQC Single Assessment Framework. Because the cohort spans mental health and fluctuating capacity, the Mental Capacity Act 2005, with its 5 statutory principles and 2-stage capacity test, runs through care planning, consent and tenancy support throughout the framework.

The nine lots and how the geography works

Sefton has split the framework by place rather than by need type, with two dedicated mental health lots sitting alongside seven geographical areas. This is a deliberate market-shaping move: it ties provision to the wards where people already live and lets the Council manage capacity area by area. The published lot data gives a clear picture of current scale.

| Lot | Area | Care providers | Services | Approx. residents | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Southport | 5 | 11 | 37 | | 2 | Birkdale & Ainsdale | 10 | 36 | 98 | | 3 | Formby, Hightown & Ince Blundell | 2 | 6 | 16 | | 4 | Crosby, Waterloo, Seaforth & Thornton | 7 | 14 | 33 | | 5 | Litherland & Netherton | 5 | 9 | 26 | | 6 | Bootle | 11 | 26 | 65 | | 7 | Maghull, Melling, Lydiate & Aintree | 5 | 12 | 31 | | 8 | Mental Health North | 5 | 12 | 38 | | 9 | Mental Health South | 8 | 17 | 46 |

Across the framework that is roughly 390 residents in around 143 services. The notice also states that restrictions apply to lot award allocation, so providers should not assume that strong scoring secures every lot applied for. Bidders indicate which lots they are applying to, and the geographical split rewards authentic local presence: named housing partners in the wards, knowledge of the local NHS and mental health pathways, and a realistic staffing model for that travel geography. A generic answer that could describe any borough will lose ground to one that names Bootle, Birkdale or the relevant mental health provider footprint.

Award criteria and the scoring battlegrounds

The award is scored on three axes: Quality, Social Value and Price. The exact percentages sit in the full ITT on The Chest, and Sefton applies its Social Value Portal evaluation to contracts over £100,000 under the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, so social value here is measured and weighted, not a paragraph of intent. Three quality battlegrounds are predictable from the specification.

The first is progression and independence. The Council wants dependency reduced and life skills built, with move-on into more independent accommodation as a measured outcome. Answers need a named outcomes framework, baseline-to-review timescales and evidence that hours have actually reduced for real people, not an aspiration to support independence in principle.

The second is mental health and complexity. Two lots are mental-health specific and the specification names recovery-focused models. Strong answers cite a recovery model by name, set out crisis and relapse planning, and show multi-disciplinary working with community mental health teams rather than treating mental health as a sub-clause of general supported living.

The third is accommodation and partnership. With core and cluster, shared lives and tenancy-based models in scope, evaluators will test how a provider sources suitable property, manages the care and tenancy boundary, and works with housing providers in each lot. Tenancy sustainment, voids and the split between housing management and regulated care are the details that separate a 4 from a 5.

The TenderLab perspective

Across 200+ care submissions we have seen the same pattern in place-based frameworks: the marks move on specificity, not polish. Sefton's nine-lot structure is an invitation to localise every answer, and most providers waste it by writing one method statement and pasting it across lots. The Council has told you where its people are, how many services exist and which areas are thin. Lot 3 (Formby, Hightown and Ince Blundell) carries only 2 current providers and around 16 residents, while Birkdale and Ainsdale runs to 98. That asymmetry is a strategic signal about where capacity is wanted and where competition will be lighter.

We also read the two mental health lots as the sharpest scoring opportunity. They are smaller, more specialist and harder to answer generically, which means a provider with genuine recovery-model evidence can score highly where volume providers cannot. We applied the same logic on the Bradford mental health supported living provider list, where six of eight questions reached full marks across both lots, and on the Bedford supported living framework, where the bid succeeded across all three lots from 154 applicants.

Common pitfalls on Sefton supported living bids

The recurring failure is geographic genericism. A response that never names a Sefton ward, a local housing partner or the Mersey Care NHS footprint reads as a template, and Light Touch evaluators mark it as one. The second pitfall is conflating supported living with domiciliary or residential care, which produces the wrong regulatory framing and the wrong staffing model for accommodation-based support.

The third is treating social value as narrative. Sefton scores it through the Social Value Portal with measurable commitments, so unquantified pledges score near zero. The fourth is pricing that cannot fund the method statement: sleep-ins, waking nights, travel across a dispersed geography and the tenancy interface all carry cost, and a price that ignores them undermines the quality answer it is meant to support.

Win-rate playbook

Five approaches consistently lift scores on frameworks of this shape.

Localise every lot answer. Name the wards, the housing providers and the mental health pathways relevant to each lot applied for, and adjust the staffing and travel model to that area rather than reusing one description.

Lead with measured progression. Open the independence answer with a named outcomes tool, a review cadence and a real reduction in support hours, then evidence it with an anonymised case showing baseline, intervention and result.

Treat the mental health lots as specialist bids. Use a named recovery model, set out relapse and crisis protocols, and evidence joint working with community mental health services and the housing provider.

Quantify social value through the Portal. Convert commitments into local employment numbers, apprenticeships, spend with Sefton SMEs and VCSEs, and carbon actions aligned to the Council's climate strategy, each with a delivery date and an owner.

Price to fund the promise. Build sleep-in, waking-night, travel and tenancy-interface costs into the model so the commercial submission can actually deliver the quality commitments, drawing on a pre-submission review to test the two against each other before upload.

Mobilisation and contract management

With service delivery starting on 14 September 2026, mobilisation runs through late summer. Evaluators want a credible plan for staffing each awarded lot to the required ratios, transferring existing residents safely where provision changes hands, and standing up tenancy and care arrangements with named housing partners. Where staff transfer between providers, TUPE obligations and Employee Liability Information need to be reflected in both the plan and the price.

After go-live, expect a contract management regime built on quality monitoring, outcome reporting against the independence and progression goals, and safeguarding assurance under the Care Act 2014. A strong bid closes the loop by showing how its own KPIs feed the Council's monitoring rather than describing internal processes that the commissioner never sees.

Frequently asked questions

When does the Sefton Supported Living Framework close? Applications close at 11:00 on 19 June 2026, submitted through The Chest (ProContract). The framework term runs for 4 years, from 14 September 2026 to 13 September 2030, under reference FTS 043273-2026.

How many lots are there and how are they divided? There are nine lots: seven by geographical area across Sefton, from Southport to Bootle, plus two mental health lots, North and South. Providers state which lots they are applying for, and restrictions apply to lot award allocation.

What are the award criteria? Bids are scored on Quality, Social Value and Price. Social value is evaluated through Sefton's Social Value Portal for contracts over £100,000, so commitments must be measurable. The full percentage weightings are set out in the ITT on The Chest.

Do we need CQC registration to bid? Personal care is a regulated activity, so providers delivering care and support need the relevant Care Quality Commission registration. Answers are assessed against the CQC Single Assessment Framework, and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 applies across the cohort.

What makes a high-scoring Sefton supported living bid? Specificity. Localised answers per lot, measured progression outcomes, a named recovery model for the mental health lots, Social Value Portal commitments with figures, and a price that funds the method statement consistently outscore generic, polished submissions.

Bidding for the Sefton Supported Living Framework? We write evaluator-ready supported living and mental health bids, with a 92% win rate across 200+ UK care submissions. Book a free consultation on this tender. TenderLab Ltd, Companies House 17184263.

Related content

• Bid writing for UK care providers
• Our pre-submission review service
• Supported living sector page
• West Sussex Supported Living Framework 2026 analysis
• Herefordshire Supported Living Approved List 2025
• Procurement Act 2023 Light Touch regime: provider guide
• Live tender opportunities

Further reading

• Find a Tender service
• Care Act 2014
• Procurement Act 2023
• Mental Capacity Act 2005
• CQC Single Assessment Framework