Adult Social Care · DPS
Place secured on Sheffield's Adults with Disabilities DPS at the first window. Standstill cleared without challenge.
The starting point
No prior place on the Sheffield DPS. Operationally strong, procurement-thin. No internal bid lead.
From no Sheffield DPS footprint → awarded Lot 3 Overnight Short Breaks.
Redacted source material
The gallery retains the source documents already published for this case. Names, identifiers and commercially sensitive details may be redacted.
Source: Sheffield City Council Successful Alcatel Letter under PCR 2015 Regulation 87, reference 62329, dated 24 January 2025. Standstill closed midnight 3 February 2025.
This case study examines the entry of Alicelyn Healthcare onto Sheffield City Council's Adults with Disabilities Dynamic Purchasing System for Lot 3 Overnight Short Breaks (reference 62329). The tender was procured under Public Contract Regulations 2015 and the provisional award was confirmed via Successful Alcatel Letter on 24 January 2025. The standstill closed at midnight on 3 February 2025 without challenge.
The provider had no place on the Sheffield DPS and no internal bid lead. The overnight delivery was operationally strong — staffing ratios, handover procedures, sleep-in protocols and risk escalation were all mature — but none of this had been translated into procurement evidence. The bid narrative needed to surface the overnight operational substance in the language of the DPS evaluation criteria.
We took the engagement as lead writer on the full DPS submission, building a weighting register from the published evaluation criteria and writing every quality response against it. The overnight staffing matrix was extracted from the provider's rota system and packaged as evidence. Five case examples were built as a reusable library from the provider's operational records.
Building the overnight staffing matrix as a standalone evidence document — showing cover ratios, handover procedures and sleep-in escalation steps against the published DPS criteria — moved the operational substance from implicit to explicit. The five-beat case-example library structured the narrative around named individuals and dated interventions, closing the evaluator's discretion on outcome evidence.
The provisional award was confirmed on 24 January 2025. Lot 3 Overnight Short Breaks was confirmed on the DPS, the standstill closed at midnight on 3 February 2025 without challenge, and the provider is now eligible to receive every overnight short breaks call-off in Sheffield over the framework lifetime.
Recorded evaluation data
The table reproduces the structured result held in the case-study record.
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Lot awarded | Lot 3 Overnight Short Breaks |
| DPS reference | 62329 |
| Award status | Provisional award confirmed |
| Standstill window | Closed midnight 3 February 2025 |
| Standstill challenge | None received |
| Award route | DPS, PCR 2015 Reg 87 |
Before the engagement
The provider had no place on Sheffield's Adults with Disabilities DPS and no structured route to bid for Council overnight short breaks call-offs. The underlying overnight delivery was strong, but the procurement narrative was thin.
After the recorded outcome
The provider holds a confirmed place on the DPS for Lot 3 and is eligible to receive every overnight short breaks call-off in Sheffield over the framework lifetime. The weighting register, overnight staffing matrix and five-beat case-example library sit inside the organisation as reusable bid infrastructure.
A comparable result is not a guarantee
We will read the published conditions and assess the evidence, delivery and commercial position before agreeing to full writing support.
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