The West Sussex County Council Supported Living Framework is one of the few continuously open commissioning routes in the South East that takes both 16+ young people in transition and adults with care and support needs in a single arrangement, which makes it a strategic pipeline for providers who can hold their CQC standing and operate a transitions-ready service model.

For some providers, it is a natural fit. For others, the transitions cohort sits outside their registered scope and the Framework is wrong from the start. In a few cases, the right move is to join and bid only on call-offs that match the adult cohort you already deliver well, leaving the 16-17 transitions packages for providers who specialise there.

But the entry rules are not simple. The Framework has been continuously open to new Service Providers since it commenced on 1 August 2021, which means the qualification standard tightens over time as the Council learns from the cohort it is actually placing. New entrants in 2026 are being assessed against a fuller picture than entrants in 2021.

This guide explains what the West Sussex Supported Living Framework 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 continuously open framework submissions.

What is the West Sussex Supported Living Framework?

It is a continuously open framework agreement run by West Sussex County Council for the provision of personal support to young people aged 16 and over and to adults with care and support needs. The Framework commenced on 1 August 2021 and remains open to new Service Providers throughout the Agreement Term.

The arrangement covers personal support delivered in supported living settings, where the person holds their own tenancy and the support service is legally separate from the housing. The Council uses the Framework to call off individual packages as referrals arise, with providers placed against the cohort, geography and risk profile that matches their described capability.

The Framework is continuously open. The deadline on Contracts Finder lists 30 July 2029 because the arrangement is intended to operate as a long-running open framework, with providers joining or leaving across the contract term. New entrants are assessed when they apply rather than at a single tender window. The total contract value is not published.

NOTE: this format rewards providers who can demonstrate a transitions-ready operating model that holds across the 16-17 to 18+ boundary without a service break. The Council's stated approach is to promote effective transition from children's to adult's services, which is a specific scoring lens that less-prepared submissions miss!

Two things matter from day one. First, the qualification submission is the only marketing document you will get. Once you are on the Framework, 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 Framework.

Who is the cohort and what statutory framework applies?

The cohort is two overlapping groups. The first is young people aged 16 and over who are transitioning from children's services into adult services and need a personal support service in a supported living setting. The second is adults aged 18 and over with care and support needs who need supported living to live as independently as possible in their own tenancy.

The most common groups within those two cohorts are:

• Young people in transition from children's social care, often with a learning disability, autism or complex needs profile, where the Care Act assessment is being completed alongside or after the final Children Act review.
• Adults with a learning disability or autism moving on from residential care, family homes or out-of-area placements back into West Sussex.
• Adults with enduring mental health needs stepping down from secondary mental health services into community-based support.
• Adults with complex behavioural needs where a Positive Behaviour Support framework is the service backbone.

The statutory framework spans two pieces of primary legislation. Care Act 2014 governs the adult side - Section 18 (the duty to meet eligible needs) and Section 9 (assessment of needs) frame every adult package, anchored on the Care Act statutory guidance. Children Act 1989 governs the under-18 side and the transition planning that brings 16/17 year olds across into adult services. The Care and Support Statutory Guidance Chapter 16 sets out how transition assessments should be carried out from the point a young person is likely to have needs after 18.

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 sits next to both - its 5 statutory principles and 2-stage capacity test apply to every significant decision the person makes about their support from the age of 16 onwards.

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 on this Framework sits on a separate housing tenancy that belongs to the person, not to the care provider. The Housing Act framework protects those tenancy rights. The person can ask you to leave the service without losing their home, and the submission has to evidence how you keep the support service legally and operationally separate from the housing.

What are the key scoring battlegrounds?

Continuously open framework submissions usually score on five fronts. Get all five and you are on. Get one wrong and the application stalls.

1. CQC registration and regulatory standing. West Sussex 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. Transitions readiness. This is the West Sussex-specific lens. The Council's stated framework purpose is to support effective transition from children's to adult services. Your submission has to evidence how you take a referral at 16 or 17, how you work alongside the Care Act transition assessment, how you bridge the Children Act review and the adult care plan without a service break, and how you adjust your supervision and risk management for under-18s in a primarily adult service.

3. Local operating footprint. The Council will want named existing services or staff bases inside or close to West Sussex. The county runs from Chichester in the west across to Crawley and Worthing in the east, and recruitment markets vary significantly across that geography. If you have no current presence in the BN, RH or PO postcodes that cover West Sussex, 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 the agreed mobilisation window.

4. Care planning and outcomes framework. West Sussex expects an enabling, strengths-based approach that holds across the transition boundary. The submission has to show how you assess the person, how you build the support plan against Care Act outcomes (or transition outcomes for 16/17 year olds), 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 both the West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board and the West Sussex Safeguarding Children Partnership (because of the 16+ cohort), 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 Framework is worth joining if West Sussex is a real geographic priority, your CQC standing is at Good or above, and your operating model can hold the 16-17 transitions cohort without breaching your registered scope or your insurance position.

It is not worth pursuing if your closest registered office is more than 90 minutes from West Sussex, your CQC rating is Inadequate, or your service is set up exclusively for over-18s and you cannot evidence a credible transitions pathway. Taking 16-17 packages without the safeguarding, supervision and risk management adjustments those packages require is a CQC enforcement risk and a reputational risk.

Where the fit is right, the long-running structure of the Framework rewards consistency. Providers who score well early tend to see call-offs in subsequent years as commissioners learn to trust the way you describe your service. The Framework 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 continuously open frameworks 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 on continuously open frameworks with a transitions cohort:

• 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 supported accommodation language (which is Ofsted-regulated for 16/17 year olds in a different service category) into a supported living submission, or referencing the wrong CQC Quality Statement. West Sussex Supported Living sits under the adult social care CQC framework, with transition-specific adjustments for the 16-17 cohort. The relevant Quality Statements are Caring, Responsive, Safe, Effective and Well-led.
• 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.
• Transitions hand-waving. "We work closely with children's services to support transition" is not a transitions model. The Council expects a named pathway against the Care and Support Statutory Guidance Chapter 16 - who takes the referral, how the Care Act transition assessment is integrated, how the handover from a children's social worker to an adult social worker is supported, how the support plan is built before the 18th birthday rather than after.
• Missing tenancy detail. Confusing residential care with supported living. Every package on this Framework 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 joining the Framework?

Six approaches we apply on every comparable continuously open supported living submission:

1. Open every method statement with a 1-2 sentence direct answer. The evaluator scoring a continuously open framework usually has a steady stream of applications to read across the contract term. 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 Framework documentation says "effective transition", say effective transition. Where it talks about "positive outcomes for people as they move into adulthood", use that phrase. Where it lists the integrated approach to market engagement, write your method statement to land directly on that. 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. Continuously open framework 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. Continuously open frameworks 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 Framework, 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 West Sussex 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 Care Act assessment (or transition assessment for 16/17 year olds), 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 Framework 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 West Sussex Supported Living Framework open to new providers now?

Yes. The Framework is continuously open to new Service Providers throughout the Agreement Term. It commenced on 1 August 2021 and the deadline on Contracts Finder of 30 July 2029 reflects the long-running nature of the Framework 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.

Can I join the Framework if I only deliver to adults aged 18 and over?

Possibly, but you should expect fewer call-offs and a more limited scoring narrative. The Framework's stated purpose is to support transition from children's to adult services, so providers who can evidence a credible transitions pathway across the 16-17 boundary are scored more favourably and are likely to see a wider call-off volume.

Is supported living the same as supported accommodation?

No. Supported living is CQC-regulated where it involves personal care, sits on a Care Act assessment, and is anchored on the person's own tenancy. Supported accommodation is an Ofsted-regulated service category specifically for 16 and 17 year olds in care, set up under separate regulations. This Framework is supported living. Do not import supported accommodation language into the submission.

Can I qualify without a local West Sussex office?

Yes, but the submission needs a named mobilisation plan with a local recruitment route across the BN, RH or PO postcodes that cover the county, 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 whether the West Sussex Supported Living Framework is the right move?

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We write specification-mirrored continuously open framework submissions with named operational evidence, a transitions-ready scoring lens 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 Framework is the right fit for your service (whether or not we are the right writers for it).

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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