We sat down with Jamie O’Connor, Customer Relationship Manager at ESPO, to understand what the best Route to Market is for a Public organisation looking to procure Contingent Resourcing.

The ESPO framework offers a competitive route to procure managed service for recruiting temporary staff. Suppliers are selected for their ability to provide customers with a comprehensive range of services that combine quality and value. Check out our interview with Jamie below, or scroll down to read the write-up:

What is the Route to Market?

Authorities have a straight-forward route to market for procuring Contingent Labour. The best place to start, as a public organisation, is with a framework like ESPO. By heading to their website and filling in an Access Agreement, they can send you the Core Specification, Pricing Files, and Contracts that have been pre-approved by the framework.

From here Jamie can support you, helping you to understand the metrics, units and financial levers within the industry, to ensure you make the best decision for you and your organisation.

There are two key ways to utilise a framework:

Direct Award:

ESPO have agreed pricing at a framework level. Which means, after you fill in your Access Agreement, you can review all the elements of what providers can offer and understand which solution best fits your needs. As everything has been pre-agreed, you can then direct award through a standard contract, fill in the gaps of a draft document, sign this off with the provider, and start implementation.

This route to market is best for organisations that are spending less than £4 million a year or organisations that have already completed their due diligence and are ready to implement with a provider.

Further Competition:

Organisations can also go out to a further competition to review solutions on the market and potentially save rates from a framework tender agreement. This process is still started through the Access Agreement; however it involves completing the further competition documents. These are draft documents that can be bespoke to each organisation going out to tender.

Further Competition for Contingent Labour goes out under Lot 1a Neutral Vendor and Lot 1b MasterVendor. We find that some organisations go out under both to see all solutions available to them on the market. Tenders normally take around 4-5 weeks, followed by an evaluation period, before a provider is appointed the contract.

This route to market is best for organisations that are spending more than £4 million a year and want to review solutions on the market that are available to them.

Insight From Jamie

“ESPO provide a very simple route to market for what a very large high-risk contract across the sector”.

Jamie O’Connor, Customer Relationship Manager, ESPO