Home to School Transport Services - Portsmouth City Council - Dynamic Purchasing System

Descriptions

The council provides a home to school transport service for mainstream and special schools for children and young people who meet specific criteria. As part of this service, the council uses local transport services including private hire vehicles, minibuses and hackney carriages to transport children and young people to their place of education., Where required, children and young people will be accompanied by a passenger assistant employed by the council. This is not the case for all routes and a number of children and young people are unaccompanied during the journey. As a result, the council must ensure that any drivers transporting children adhere to a strict standard of behaviour and possess a current DBS check. Full details of requirements can be found in the Driver Handbook within the tender documents., The majority of call-offs will be awarded via mini-competition across all DPS suppliers. However, the council reserves the right to award call-offs without a mini-competition in the following circumstances:, • Where time is of the essence, • Where the child or young person's needs are specific to mean that only one supplier can fulfil the requirements, • Where a route will not run regularly or will be subject to significant change, Awards made without mini-competition will be based on factors including but not limited to the needs of the child or young person, vehicle type available, price per mile and supplier performance., There is no minimum term for call-offs. While most call-offs will be awarded for at least the academic year, there may be changes to circumstances which require routes to be terminated, changed or awarded mid-year. , Call-offs will be awarded for a maximum term of 3 years, with the option to extend in increments to be agreed, to a maximum of 5 years. In exceptional circumstances call-off contracts may be extended beyond 5 years. These circumstances include:, • Where the needs of a child or young person can only be met by a specific vehicle type and this is held by one operator only and these needs will not change, • Where changes to the service would cause significant disruption to a child or young person's ability to attend school, • Where conditions in the wider environment mean extensions are required to prevent service disruption. For example, where local or national polices directly impacting service delivery are in the process of being updated, or where global political situations significantly increase the cost of fuel resulting in unaffordable cost increases for the council.