What We've Done
 What We've Done
So what is it you do? How can you help us? 

Well here is just some of the things we’ve done over the past 7 years; and a little on what we’ve done this year already (from September 2017) to support our clients. This helps us remember too and is an interesting history of how things have changed over the past 7+ years.

Our first year in business (2010/11) was in the run up to the launch of DWP’s Work Programme so activity was initially focused on that. Over the course of the year we:  
• Supported a number of organisations to gain positions on DWPs Employment Related Services Framework
• Provided consultancy assistance to a range of organisations in the Private and Third Sectors from across the UK, Australia and USA
• Developed successful tender proposals for organisations in the skills and employability markets across DWP, ESF, SFA and previous RDA funding streams
• Secured prime and subcontracts well in excess of £100 million for our customers.
• Project Managed the transition from FND and implementation of the Work Programme across London and the South East
• Developed a highly successful Executive Search function for Senior Operational and Corporate Roles due to demand from customers
In our second year (2011/12) we went on to provide support including:
• Successful implementation of the DWP ESF Families with Multiple Problems Contract across Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Warrington on behalf of G4S
• Bid writing and financial planning support followed by post tender negotiations with DWP and implementation activity for a successful Innovation Fund Round 1 provider.
• Provided bid writing and bid review support to an organisation that enabled them to secure a multi- million pound SFA Workplace Learning Contract
• Production of tender and financial submission that secured a new market entrant a place on the DWP Health & Disabilities Assessment (HDS) Framework
• Bid writing and review support that secured one organisation preferred bidder status for both of the EFA funded –Youth Contracts that they tendered for  
• Produce a 5 year business plan for a new market entrant
• Reviewed the strategic objectives of a small charity facing substantial funding cuts and re focused their development activity
• Provided research support for a variety of organisations and worked with a local authority to develop their youth services

In what was supposed to be a quieter tendering year we helped clients secure over £40 million of new business.
We ended our second year in business with a great win for one of our clients who secured both of the EFA Youth Contract's covering all of London. Then as we entered Year 3 confirmation came of another youth focused win - the GLA ESF Youth Programme (2011-13)
Over the year we then went on to: 
  • support one private sector client to secure a contract under the DWP Innovation Fund Round 2
  • quickly followed by project management and bid writing support for a Work Programme Prime Contractor, securing one of the two Day 1 Trailblazer Pilots in London    
  • provided support to two organisations with three tenders in different geographies for the SFA Skills Support for the Workforce Contracts that resulted in all three being award to our clients.
  • Secured two new tendered contracts for a smaller London based charity that provides significant new revenue streams; both again focused on Young People.
  • We provided tender review support for one occupational health care provider that helped them secure major OH contracts with Central Government whilst working with another disability and health focused provider of assessment and employment programmes to secure new business with five different Work Programme Prime Contractors.
  •  Fulfilling the role of Project Director and managing the staff and process for a Business Transformation Project on behalf of a £240 million per annum charity to create a new UK wide Employment, Training and Skills Division.   
  • Providing business review and challenge activity to inform Work Programme delivery improvements with a charity delivering as a supply chain partner of a major Prime.
  • Providing Interim Management of a Charity’s Business Development Function, putting in place new processes whilst driving their ambition to secure new business.
  • Providing Business Development Training to the Senior Management team of a university and a major provider of SFA funded programmes.  
  • Whilst providing direct Executive Search we also provided consultancy support to a main stream recruitment company that has led them to a renewed internal focus on business development.
  • Provided research, product development and workshop support for a charity expanding its Work Experience offering
Preparing for known contract tendering opportunities has also been a key theme this year and thats why we’ve:
  •  Provided support to one organisation in readiness to consider the opportunity (Autumn 2013) that will come from the national roll out of the successor to the Fit for Work pilot service  
  • Supported a rapidly growing non Work Programme Prime to secure their Merlin Accreditation – through an intensive self-assessment review process in readiness for the new Employment Related Service Framework Tender in 2014             
  • Having completed an initial piece of research into the Northern Ireland employability market place; produced a strategic partnership approach, built an extensive supply chain solution involving a range of local providers and produced a detailed Research document to support bidding activity all in readiness for the launch of the Steps 2 Success PQQ in July 2013    
In a year with far more activity focused on Plan and Develop we still managed to secure new contracted business in excess of £22 million for our clients and that was before we knew the results on competitions such as the GLA Offenders tender or the SFA ESF Neet / Risk of NEET where we supported clients from the voluntary and private sectors (and we won them too).
Our fourth year in business got underway in September 2013 and what a year it was.
In the part of our year falling into 2013 we were kept particularly busy with opportunities from the SFA.
These included Skills Support for the Workforce; NEETS; & Skills Support for the Unemployed and we secured new contracts for various clients in East of England, the Midlands, London, the South East and South West – resulting in our various clients securing over £12 million of new business.

But it wasn’t all SFA in late 2013 we also secured contracts with London Councils, and DCLG, including Together in Service and Community Based English Language.

During this period we also provided research, partnership development and some bid submission support for various in house business development teams of existing Primes to ensure they were best placed to maximise on these opportunities as they arose.  
2014 saw opportunities coming from all directions and TWP Solutions were involved in many including more SFA (including flexible fund and Work Programme Leavers), DWP New Enterprise Allowance, DWP Youth Engagement Fund, National Careers Service, JobPath Ireland, Edinburgh City Council Supported Employment, DWP Health and Disability Assessment PQQ and DCLG’s Help to Buy Agent Tenders.

We were particularly proud of those successes where we were left to do everything (rather than providing support and guidance to in house teams) in 2014 (in amongst many other wins we supported) we won the biggest Help to Buy Agent Tender in the country for a Housing Association (worth up to £24 million); the only contract not to be retained by the incumbent provider.  
Equally satisfying was securing a SFA Work Programme Leavers Contract for a small provider who had never previously held a direct SFA contract – virtually doubling their turnover over-night.

Over the course of the year we exceeded £50 million in new contracts for a range of clients, and in the process helped them build their evidence base to get ready for the next big round of opportunities.
As we entered our 5th year (14/15) we had always assumed it would be the low point in the economic cycle from a new business perspective given that it include the period of a General Election; and it proved to be so, with even the ESF 2014-2020 programme experiencing significant delays in securing approval. 
But none of that stopped TWP Solutions from being busy.

It sometimes felt like the year where we were continually advising clients not to bid for contracts due to unrealistic performance expectations or poor financial values being offered by a number of procuring organisations.
But sometimes it is important to know when to walk away from an “opportunity”.

That said there were lots of opportunities to go at, and amongst other tender opportunities, during the year we:
  • Supported a winning Tender for DWP Youth Engagement Fund and in excess of 20 Flexible Support Fund winning tenders 
  • Developed the solution and produced winning tender for DWP UK Wide – Specialist Employability Support Tender 
  • Supported a Local Authority to submit a successful ESF first round application to GLA – June 2015
During the year we had a major project working with a UK Wide health focused employability organisation going through major organisational change. Over a 5 month period we provided training days, process and system development & mentoring support on business development to over 70 Business Mangers whose roles were changing from being purely operational to being responsible for contract delivery and business development within their locality. 

And as if that wasn’t enough we’ve continued to provide executive search for key strategic positions for a number of organisations whilst also supporting other organisations with acquisition and sale.

Towards the end of our 5th year (at the end of August 2015) we were already heavily involved in capacity building and research preparation with a range of clients in readiness for the launch of SFA and DWP co-financed ESF.
Our 6th year began in September 2015 with a lot of work focused on supporting organisations get ready for the opportunities ahead. This included developing EOI systems and processes, data capture approaches, process maps, flowcharts and scoring templates; and developing & reviewing financial models for a number of organisations focused on impending SFA/ESF opportunities.
Towards the end of 2015 our focus was on supporting a range of organisations, predominately from the charity sector, with their tender submissions for SFA ESF Contracted Support interspersed with tender review and support on ERDF and Careers and enterprise Fund opportunities.  
Preparation work continued for clients with research and reports produced into the implications of the Work and Health Programme whilst also supporting a submission for the Big Lottery Building Better Opportunities (BBO) fund. We were delighted that our support meant one of the few wins (if not only) for a private sector organisation on the ESF backed BBO 
ESF and SFA work kept us going throughout the 2016 part of the business year with work on SFA ESF NEET Tenders, Low Carbon, Youth Talent and SME ERDF tenders before adding a variety of DWP ESF tenders including Troubled Families.
SFA ESF kept coming with wins secured on SSU – ICT/Digital and a range of others which meant we ended the business year having supported clients to secure in excess of £30 million of new contracts. 
The start of our 7th Year in business saw us starting off where we’d finished the year before supporting a range of clients with SFA ESF tenders covering Skills Support for the workforce, redundancy & unemployed; youth engagement etc.
We had a huge success with those bids and were delighted, when the SFA published the final list of the £400 million of contracts awarded, to see that having provided support to only 5 organisations we helped them secure 12% of the contracts awarded with 10% of the total contract value.
Our year continued with support for New Enterprise Allowance and other DWP opportunities before going back to SFA in November with support for organisations to enter the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (RoATP) and at the same time tenders submissions for the SFA Non Levy Apprenticeships ITT.
All of our supported clients made it on to the register however sadly the SFA eventually pulled the plug on the Non Levy Apprenticeship ITT ( due to their own procurement failings) and we had to revisit this in 2017 in a far more substantial submission. But that wasn’t before we had to respond to SFA Adult Education Budget tenders in the early part of 2017, after long delay in announcing results we were delighted that all of the clients we supported secured new business – in excess of £20 million from that tendering round.
ESF and SFA kept us so busy in early 2017 that we had to decline opportunities to support any organisations with Work and Health Programme tenders, although our support for retained clients ensured we facilitated a number of sub- contracting -opportunities.
We re-entered the tendering world of welfare to work; supporting three organisations with submissions for Fair Start Scotland. Clients always look for different levels of support one requested up front financial planning and bid preparation support, another sought full end to end management and production of tender both the quality response and financial submission and another required our support towards the end of the process to review and edit their in house produced tenders but we have to wait till 2017/18 to see how that panned out.
With Fair Start submitted we were then engaged by a Prime bidder for Work and Health Programme at the point when they were preparing their final submission, providing support to their in house teams with modelling and developing their solutions and reviewing and refining their final tender submission.  
The Jobcentre Plus Dynamic Purchasing System kept us busy in between all of these timetabled opportunities; teeing us up nicely for news of a range of contract wins during our eighth year in business to build on the £60 million plus of contract wins this year. 

On 2nd September 2017 we entered year 8 for TWP Solutions and by the end of that month we’d already heard about our success in supporting a winning Work and Health programme bid and three successful bids for Fair Start Scotland contracts with a combined value in excess of £64 million.

We’re still waiting for the results of the ESFA – non levy tenders but are fairly confident we’ll have in excess of £20 million of ESFA new contract wins supported by the time they are announced in October.

Our year is already shaping up to be one that supports contract implementation and provides training programmes for both business development and operational staff within a number of organisations.

With the possibility of Access to Work Mental Health and the OLASS contract coming out to tender in the early part of 2018 – we’re still expecting to exceed a £100 million of supported contract wins this year; and we’ll update this page in a couple of months to let you know how we are getting on. 

Meantime we’re continuing to support submissions on to the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers and proposals for the DWP/Jobcentre Plus – Dynamic Purchasing System.
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