Case Study on Flexibility of PPN 02/21 to Establish a Contract for Braille Translation Services

The Education Authority, (EA) Commercial Procurement Service (CPS) recognised the benefit of aggregating spend for Translation and Transcribing of Braille services. This would allow the Sensory Service Team (SST) a commercial contract for Translation and Transcribing of Braille. The Contract was required to support pupils with visual impairments by translating in-house handbooks and class booklets produced by teachers within required timescales. The translations service is required for Post Primary pupils and the service must be completed to the necessary quality standards set by the UK Association for Accessible Formats (UKAFF) to ensure accuracy.

The SST required the Contractors to provide braille transcription using UEB (Unified English Braille) for literacy, mathematics and science codes.  The SST also required Contractors to produce tactile graphics for diagrams for pupils with visual impairment that consist of UEB (Grade 2) and tactile graphics. 

The contract was awarded and commenced on 16 December 2024 with a maximum total contract value of £100,000. 

EA sought to complete a Market Assessment exercise for Translation and Transcribing of Braille service, in line with PPN 02/21 Procurement of Social and Other Specific Services.  To understand the capabilities and capacity of organisations within the market and deliver a value for money solution for SST. 

The value of the contract allowed EA to benefit from the flexibility offered in Section 5 of PPN 02/21 Procurement of Social and Other Specific Services, particularly section 5.4. which allowed EA to award a contract directly following conclusion of the Market Assessment exercise (and without a subsequent competition).  Specific questions were built into the Market Assessment questionnaire to allow EA to assess the Suppliers’ ability to provide the service.  On receipt of the Market Assessment responses, EA would determine if all requirements of the PPN have been met, or if a further competition was necessary.

To ensure best Value for Money (VfM) was achieved EA carried out and documented:

• A review of available Collaborative Frameworks and similar Contracts in the Market.
• The publication of the Market Assessment exercise on eTendersNI which received three responses. 
• Identification of risks by completing all relevant internal Quality Management System documentation.
• Publication of Conditions of Contract and Specification of Requirement that included proportionate KPIs.
• Assessment of suitability of responding service providers by carrying out assessment against published criteria and quality check on samples assessment where appropriate.
• Accurate record keeping including all approvals.
• Publication of details of the awarded Contracts.
• On initial assessment of the responses, EA determined that the responses provided sufficient detail to allow the assessment of the Supplier’s ability to deliver the service. The specific questions to determine the Suppliers’ ability were evaluated by the panel and scored against the published criteria. 

Initial pre-market investigations carried out by EA Commercial Procurement Service identified a number of arrangements and potential suppliers, however, the capabilities and capacity of suppliers was difficult to gauge. The Market Assessment allowed the EA to establish that there were providers in the market who delivered similar services to those required, though at this time they were not demonstrated to the required standards. 

This exercise and the flexibilities afforded by the processes outlined in PPN 02/21, including clarifications on the different approaches were carried out, this included calculating estimated costs based on the commercial approach taken by the different suppliers, to a like for like assessment of the responses as well as allowing for an award of a contract without further competition which saved time and resource that would have been required to run a further competition. 

The exercise was particularly useful in establishing benchmarking figures for costs as the details of individual orders and complexity of materials required will vary throughout the lifetime of the Contract. As a result of this exercise, the Sensory Service now have a compliant contract and commercial knowledge to ensure value for money on future braille translation and transcription requirements.