Dear Sir or Madam,

Common Purpose - tenders and contracts

Please supply:

1. Details of the general procedures involved in selecting external
training providers for your organisation

2. Details of the tendering procedures involved in selecting
external training providers for your organisation

3. Copies of the tenders issued for all training courses which were
eventually won by Common Purpose

4. Copies of any and all contracts between your organisation and
Common Purpose

5. Details of how your organisation audits the integrity and value
of courses run by external training providers

By "Common Purpose", I mean the training organisation of that name:
http://www.commonpurpose.org/home.aspx

Yours faithfully,

John Walker

From: [FOI #1668 email]
To: [Greater London Authority request email]
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Common Purpose - tenders and contracts
The Mayor would like to thank you for your interest in his work and he is keen to answer your query as fully as possible. As you will appreciate, he has received a very large amount of correspondence from Londoners since the election and it is proving quite challenging to respond as quickly as we would like.
Please note that non Greater London Authority (GLA) related queries will be referred to the appropriate functional body for them to reply e.g. transport related queries will be referred to Transport for London (TfL).
However, the Mayor is committed to responding to all appropriate correspondence and everything is being done to reply to your query as quickly as possible.
This is an automated message and therefore does not require any response.

Dear Mr Walker

Thank you for your email dated 10th August, enquiring about processes the GLA use when engaging training suppliers. The answers to your specific questions are given below.

1. Details of the general procedures involved in selecting external training providers for your organisation.
The GLA currently has a 3 year framework agreement in place with a variety of training suppliers. Training suppliers first completed a pre-qualifying questionnaire to establish, among other things, their financial stability, track record, technical capability etc. Successful companies were then invited to tender and expand on their approach to training.

2. Details of the tendering procedures involved in selecting external training providers for your organisation.
All training commissioned centrally by the GLA is offered to training companies pre-selected as part of the framework agreement. A specification is put together and companies are asked to detail how they would meet the requirement and at what cost. A company is then selected based on this response. If none of the responses meet the need, we ask training companies outside of the framework agreement to submit responses to the specification.

3. Copies of the tenders issued for all training courses which were eventually won by Common Purpose.
Common Purpose have never won a contract for services at the GLA. Two GLA delegates were sent to external courses run by this company as per individual/local arrangements based on individually identified learning needs (where cost was covered by departmental training budgets).

4. Copies of any and all contracts between your organisation and Common Purpose.
Due to low volume of training places at Common Purpose courses taken by GLA staff in total, a formal tendering procedure (which would include issuing of contracts) was not applicable.

5. Details of how your organisation audits the integrity and value of courses run by external training providers.
Following the rigorous tendering and selection process, we work closely with course providers at course design stage to ensure the course is relevant and high quality. After a course has run, we use an electronic survey system to collect data about it. We share this information with course providers, and work with them to address any issues that are raised. We evaluate long-term courses during and after the event, to evaluate long term benefits.
These arrangements apply to all corporate/centrally run training courses at the GLA, whilst arrangements for - much lower volume - departmental training (such as the instances where Common Purpose courses were taken up) require individual managers to secure value for money.

I hope that this information is useful to you. If you are unhappy with the way the GLA has handled your request, you may complain using the GLA's comments and complaints procedure, available at http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/comments/in... .

Kind regards,
Karen Frost

Learning and Development
Human Resources Group

Dear Sir or Madam,

Common Purpose - tenders and contracts

Please supply:

1. Details of the general procedures involved in selecting external
training providers for your organisation

2. Details of the tendering procedures involved in selecting
external training providers for your organisation

3. Copies of the tenders issued for all training courses which were
eventually won by Common Purpose

4. Copies of any and all contracts between your organisation and
Common Purpose

5. Details of how your organisation audits the integrity and value
of courses run by external training providers

By "Common Purpose", I mean the training organisation of that name:
http://www.commonpurpose.org/home.aspx

Yours faithfully,

John Walker

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