Independent Fostering Agency (IFA) Retainer Block Pilot
£49,600 — stated in the notice
The procurement contact named on the official notice.
This sits below the typical range for Health & Social Care contracts — a smaller, more accessible award. Based on 32,734 valued Health & Social Care tenders in our corpus.
Reading Borough Council's Health & Social Care cycle is past due — it ran about every 19 months across 3 notices, and the door is open now. It may re-tender at any time.
28% of Reading Borough Council’s awards go to a supplier it has used before.
Which is the argument for getting on the list rather than winning this one. The incumbent is rarely the last winner — it is the roster. See the retention odds by category →
Reading Borough Council is undertaking a soft market testing and engagement exercise to explore a new commissioning approach for securing local foster care capacity through a retainer based block model.
The Council is seeking early engagement with Independent Fostering Agencies (IFAs) to test whether this approach is viable in the current market, particularly in relation to the availability of carers within a 20 mile radius of Reading Civic Centre, and to understand whether the model is operationally practical and commercially attractive to providers.
This exercise will also support a co design process with the market, enabling providers to help shape and refine the proposed model, service expectations, and delivery approach ahead of any potential procurement.
The Council is particularly keen to work collaboratively to ensure that any future model is realistic, deliverable, and aligned with market capacity and provider insight.
This PIN forms part of a structured pre procurement engagement process and is intended to inform decision making on whether to proceed to a pilot and how the model should be designed.
Who Should Engage We welcome interest from: • IFAs with existing or potential carers in the Reading area • Providers able to support local placement development • Organisations interested in collaborative model design
What the notice asks for
This exercise will also support a co
This exercise will also support a co design process with the market, enabling providers to help shape and refine the proposed model, service expectations, and delivery approach ahead of any potential procurement.
The Council is particularly keen to work
The Council is particularly keen to work collaboratively to ensure that any future model is realistic, deliverable, and aligned with market capacity and provider insight.
This PIN forms part of a structured
This PIN forms part of a structured pre procurement engagement process and is intended to inform decision making on whether to proceed to a pilot and how the model should be designed.
Providers able to support local placement development
Providers able to support local placement development.
Sentences from the notice that state an obligation, surfaced automatically and shown in the order they appear. Not an exhaustive list — always confirm against the tender documents.
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- OCID
- ocds-h6vhtk-06aebc
- Stage
- planning · Planning
- Source
- Find a Tender
- Buyer ref
- 053342-2026
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source data © Crown copyright.
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