The Wakefield Council My Life Pseudo Dynamic Purchasing System is one of the largest open commissioning routes in West Yorkshire adult social care, with a £95.0m envelope and a deadline that does not close until 8 April 2027, which makes it both a multi-year placement pipeline and a market entry point for any provider whose operating footprint already touches the Wakefield Metropolitan District.

For some providers, it is the obvious next step. For others, the cohort breadth and CQC registration requirements make the fit wrong from the start. In a few cases, the right move is to qualify for one service user group only and bid for call-offs that match the cohort you already deliver well.

But the qualification rules are not simple. The arrangement is run as a Pseudo Dynamic Purchasing System rather than a traditional framework, which means a different procurement procedure with continuous entry, tighter expectations on how you evidence registration, competency and capacity, and a Service Specification and Contract Agreement you have to demonstrate you meet from day one.

This guide explains what the Wakefield My Life PDSP actually is, the cohort and statutory framework 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 PDSP submissions.

What is the Wakefield My Life PDSP?

It is a Pseudo Dynamic Purchasing System being developed by Wakefield Council for the delivery of care and support services across the Wakefield Metropolitan District. Once qualified, providers become eligible to deliver My Life Services to one or more service user groups as the Council places packages, voids and new referrals through the arrangement.

A Pseudo DPS is a hybrid commissioning structure that borrows the open-entry mechanics of a Dynamic Purchasing System but operates outside the strict Public Contracts Regulations 2015 DPS rules. It allows the Council to keep entry open across the contract term, refresh the supplier pool as the market changes, and call off packages against a pre-agreed Service Specification and Contract Agreement. Providers apply when they are ready rather than waiting for a single tender window.

The arrangement is long-running. The deadline on Contracts Finder is 8 April 2027, which reflects the multi-year entry window rather than a single submission cut-off. New entrants are assessed against the registration, competency and capacity requirements when they apply.

NOTE: the "My Life" naming convention is consistent with the rights-based, person-centred framing used by other West Yorkshire commissioners. Providers should expect the Service Specification to anchor on choice, control, independence and outcomes rather than task-and-time delivery!

Two things matter from day one. First, the qualification submission is the only marketing document you will get. Once you are on the PDSP, 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 and the service user group cohort, not necessarily the largest provider on the system.

Who is the cohort and what statutory framework applies?

The cohort is adults with care and support needs across multiple service user groups within the Wakefield Metropolitan District. The Council's notice states that providers can apply to provide services for one or more service user groups, but the specific enumeration of those groups is not yet published. Based on the My Life framing and the West Yorkshire commissioning pattern, the likely cohorts include:

• 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.
• Older adults with frailty, dementia or long-term conditions needing domiciliary or supported living support.

Providers should confirm the final service user group list against the Service Specification once published rather than assume the cohort split.

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 Council places through the PDSP, with the Care and Support Statutory Guidance setting out how the duty is discharged. 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 qualification submission will assess your current rating, date of last inspection and any active conditions. The Council will expect alignment with the CQC Quality Statements under the Single Assessment Framework - Caring, Responsive, Safe, Effective and Well-led.

Locality matters. The PDSP is bounded by the Wakefield Metropolitan District, which means WF postcodes and the surrounding rural and ex-mining communities. Providers without a current Wakefield presence can still qualify but the submission has to evidence a real local recruitment route and a named locality lead.

What are the key scoring battlegrounds?

The verified tender information does not yet publish scoring weights or lot numbers, so providers should treat the following as the typical PDSP qualification fronts in adult social care rather than confirmed Wakefield criteria. Get all five and you are on the PDSP. Get one wrong and the application stalls.

1. CQC registration and regulatory standing. Wakefield will check your latest CQC inspection report, your overall rating, the date of last inspection, and any active conditions or enforcement actions. If you are Requires Improvement or Inadequate, qualification may still be possible 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 request.

2. Service user group registration and competency. A PDSP that covers multiple cohorts will ask you to register against the service user groups you can credibly deliver. Generic "we support all adults" sentences score poorly. The submission has to evidence which cohorts you have current operational experience in, the named clinical or behavioural frameworks you use for each, and the staff competency profile that backs the claim. Over-claiming cohort coverage is one of the fastest ways to lose marks.

3. Capacity and Wakefield operating footprint. The Council will want a credible capacity statement - how many hours, packages or beds you can take on inside the Wakefield district, your named existing services or staff bases in the area, and your contingency for short-notice capacity. If you have no current presence in WF postcodes, the application is harder. You can still qualify with a credible mobilisation plan but the submission has to name a real local recruitment route and a locality lead you will appoint inside 30 days.

4. Care planning and outcomes framework. Wakefield's My Life framing expects an enabling, strengths-based, person-centred 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. Named frameworks - Outcome Star, Recovery Star, PBS, Threshold of Need or comparable - read better than generic claims.

5. Quality assurance and safeguarding. The Council will expect a registered safeguarding lead, a clear referral pathway into the Wakefield 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 PDSP is worth getting onto if Wakefield is a real geographic priority, your CQC standing is at Good or above, and you can match your cohort competency to the service user groups the Council will publish in the final Service Specification.

It is not worth pursuing if your closest registered office is more than 60 minutes from Wakefield, your CQC rating is Inadequate, or you are trying to over-claim cohort coverage to cover a thin operational track record. The district mixes urban centres with dispersed rural and ex-mining communities. Travel time, lone working risk and recruitment from a competitive West Yorkshire labour market all matter.

Where the fit is right, the multi-year structure of the PDSP rewards consistency. Providers who score well at qualification tend to see call-offs across the contract term as commissioners learn to trust the way you describe your service. The PDSP 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 Pseudo DPS arrangements is that the highest-scoring submissions almost always name a single accountable manager per service user group, 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:

• Cohort over-claiming. Registering against every service user group on the PDSP when your operational track record only credibly covers two or three. Evaluators read the cohort registration against the named contracts and case examples you provide. Mismatch is visible and costs marks.
• 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. The Wakefield My Life PDSP sits under the adult social care CQC framework. The relevant Quality Statements are Caring, Responsive, Safe, Effective and Well-led under the Single Assessment Framework.
• Vague capacity numbers. "We have an experienced team" with no headcount, no hours-per-week capacity, no turnover figure, no retention rate. The Council needs to see whether you can actually take on the volume the call-offs will require.
• Mobilisation hand-waving. "We will mobilise quickly using our established processes" is not a plan. The Council expects a phased mobilisation against named milestones - assessment, care plan, staff matching, induction, key worker assignment, first review - inside a stated timeframe.

What is the win-rate playbook for qualifying?

Six approaches we apply on every comparable Pseudo DPS qualification:

1. Open every method statement with a 1-2 sentence direct answer. The evaluator scoring a PDSP qualification usually has dozens to read. Front-loading the answer means they can score against the criterion 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 Service Specification says "My Life", use that phrase. Where it says "enabling", say enabling. 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 per cohort. 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. PDSP qualifications 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. PDSP arrangements 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 PDSP, the Council issues call-offs as individual packages and service user group referrals come up. There is no guaranteed volume across the £95.0m envelope - the figure represents the total potential value across all qualified providers and the full contract term.

The first 30 days after qualification matter. Set up your named Wakefield locality lead, register on the Council's preferred call-off portal, and agree your contact protocol with the commissioning team for each service user group you are registered against.

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

The post-go-live KPI regime is likely to follow the typical adult social care call-off pattern: a quarterly contract management meeting, a documented person-centred review inside the first 6 weeks of every package, and an annual contract review against the original PDSP submission. The exact KPI cadence will be confirmed in the Service Specification once published.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Wakefield My Life PDSP open to new providers now?

The arrangement is being developed by Wakefield Council with a deadline of 8 April 2027 on Contracts Finder, which reflects the long-running nature of a Pseudo DPS rather than a single submission window. Providers should monitor the source tender for the exact opening date for applications and the published Service Specification.

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 may not be required - but the Council will still assess your quality assurance, safeguarding and workforce evidence to the same standard. The exact CQC requirement will depend on the service user group and service type you register against.

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 a Pseudo DPS different from a framework or a traditional DPS?

A Dynamic Purchasing System under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 has a strict process for entry and call-off. A framework has a fixed pool and fixed term. A Pseudo DPS sits between the two - it borrows the open-entry mechanics of a DPS but operates outside the strict regulatory rules, allowing continuous entry across the contract term and call-off based on capability and cohort match.

Can I qualify for more than one service user group?

Yes. The Council's notice states providers can apply to be on the PDSP to provide services for one or more service user groups. The recommendation is to register only against the cohorts where you have a credible operational track record, named clinical or behavioural frameworks, and the staff competency to back the claim.

Can I qualify without a local Wakefield office?

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

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Further reading on the framework: Mental Capacity Act Code of Practice (gov.uk) and NICE QS136 service user experience in adult social care.

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