Social Connectedness Service

Descriptions

****PRELIMINARY MARKET ENGAGEMENT****

We are seeking to engage with organisations to gather information and explore potential solutions for achieving the Social Connectedness objectives.

This Preliminary Market Engagement is being undertaken to seek ideas and information from interested organisations by completing a questionnaire to:

• Ensure any future service is well designed, efficient, effective, delivering value for money and meets people's needs and desired outcomes.

• Design of the service level agreement.

• Determine the capacity of the market to supply the service and the level of interest in the anticipated forthcoming service procurement.

Derbyshire County Council's intention is to develop and design services for social connection to provide effective, prevention focused social connection initiatives to reduce loneliness, improve wellbeing, make best use of community assets, and increase the resilience of local communities.

DCC will be considering a range of commissioning arrangements, with initial ideas for geographical 'lots' set out in the project information document and we are keen to hear from potential providers on the options they believe could work best or other options.

The contract length currently under consideration will be for 2 years from November 2026, with the option to extend for 1 further period of twelve months.

The funding for the model is allocated at £400,000 per annum, with a total potential financial envelope of £1.2m (if the extension option is taken).

Enagement Deadline Amended to 20 October 2025 which is the deadline to email to attend the event on 22 October.

The Questionnaire Deadline is Friday 03 October 2025, 5PM