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Procurement for skills programmes

Are you an organisation who has innovative approach to upskilling local residents to find good work and in-work progression and looking to work with the West Midlands Combined Authority?

Through powers devolved to the WMCA, it’s our ambition to bring a sharp focus in how we use skills funding to support our residents to progress either into sustainable good jobs or upskill those already in-work to support career progression. From a business perspective it is important that our skills interventions reflect business and sector need leading to improved productivity and growth.

To support our ambition, we have developed a commissioning approach via a Flexible Procurement System (FPS) to enable us to engage with the skills training market swiftly and coherently. The FPS provides the opportunity for organisations to be appointed to the FPS through an evaluation process which includes a Selection Questionnaire, Technical Questions and the opportunity to apply to be on 4 categories which support the Employment and Skills Strategy. Once successfully onboarded to the FPS, organisations will be able to respond to ‘call-off’s’ through a competitive procurement exercise and bid for a variety of skills packages.

Whilst WMCA still reserve the right to use other procurement methods, the FPS provides an opportunity for us to work collaboratively and be innovative in establishing capacity and capability to meet the needs of our residents and businesses.

Flexible Procurement System

We have opted to use a Flexible Procurement System as the procurement method for delivering our skills and training provision. This is because it will allow the flexibility to deliver skills provision now and, in the future, and enables a wide range of organisations to bid for adult skills opportunities.

It is different to traditional procurement routes as it operates an open market for providers to join at specific application windows throughout the year. This allows us to continually expand our network of providers and welcome new providers that can meet our needs.
The aim is to streamline procurement for both providers and WMCA; providers will already be pre-approved prior to being invited to individual call-off competitions and therefore will only be required to answer project specific questions to demonstrate suitability and capability.

Stage one – Joining the FPS

You will need to join our new Flexible Procurement System to bid for any WMCA Skills opportunities. Stage 1 is the initial set up stage.

In this initial set up stage, all providers who meet the selection criteria contained in the Selection Questionnaire (SQ), pass the evaluation criteria and pass the Technical Capability Questions will be awarded onto the FPS. Any provider that does not meet these requirements will be excluded and not be awarded onto the FPS. They will, however, be given feedback as to why their application failed and will be able to re-apply at a later date once the next application window opens.

Unlike framework agreements, providers can apply to join the FPS when an application window has opened even if they have previously applied and failed to be admitted onto the FPS. Once your application is successful and you’ve signed your FPS agreement you will be able to tender for skills delivery opportunities commonly referred to as Call-Offs, Calls for Competition or Further Competitions.

Stage two – Further competitions

Individual skills provision contracts will be awarded during the second stage. In this stage, WMCA will invite all eligible providers who have a place on the FPS to bid for a specific contract (this is the call-off competition stage) after category, place and sector filters have been applied.

Call-off Competitions may be run under one or more of the 5 following categories;

  1. Building Strong and Inclusive Communities
  2. Providing a good education up to Level 2
  3. Moving residents into employment and supporting career progression
  4. Meeting future skills needs at level 3 and above through upskilling and reskilling
  5. Innovation

Only FPS Providers who are included on that category/categories will be invited to tender. In order to further shortlist FPS Providers to invite to tender, WMCA may choose to also apply the sector and place filters that are relevant for the requirements of the Call-Off Competition. As with the categories, once filters are applied, FPS Providers who are not included on that filter/s will not be invited to tender.

Once filters have been applied FPS providers will be invited to stage two which will offer them the opportunity to complete and submit their bid. At this stage FPS providers will also be asked to confirm their selection questionnaire information is up to date and correct.

We expect providers to only bid for contracts that they have the experience, capacity, and capability to deliver. 

Providers are not obligated to bid for every contract.

Who can apply?

You can apply to join the FPS if you’re an organisation who deliver adult education and training provision with a potential to deliver:

General Skills provision

Innovative Skills provision

Employment provision

Community learning and training provision

Basic Skills provision

Higher level skills provision

When you can apply for the FPS

The FPS opened for initial applications in February 2025 and the FPS was established in December 2025. Applications will open every 6 months as standard, however, WMCA reserves the right to open the window ad-hoc ahead of a specific opportunity (for example, where there is a need to onboard Applicants of specialist or niche provision).

This will allow WMCA to continually expand our network of FPS Providers and welcome new Applicants that are able to meet our Technical Education, Skills and Employment Support requirements for the duration of the FPS.

WMCA suggest that you apply as soon as possible when the application window is open so that you do not miss out on any calls for competition/further competitions that will take place. Please note that if you are not approved and appointed to the FPS before an opportunity becomes available you will not be able to bid for the call for competition/further competition.

How to apply

Please register on the Bravo e-tendering portal using this link West Midlands Combined Authority eTendering Portal. Once registered you can download all the application documents under the relevant PQQ. Please note you will only be able to submit an application if the application window is open.

Applications will require you to:

  • Answer a series of questions about your organisation.
  • Demonstrate capability and capacity by responding to 4 technical questions.
  • If you want to join all or any of the 4 categories, you will also need to respond to these questions.

For help with the application process, you will need to read the Application Guidance Document that is attached in the PQQ in the Bravo portal.