Prior Information Notice and Survey – Business Support for the Third Sector
Since June 2011, free specialist business support has been available nationally to the enterprising Third Sector funded by the Scottish Government. The contract for delivering business support for the Third Sector plugs the gap for the many small and medium-sized social enterprise organisations across the country that would be unable to access mainstream business support. The bespoke service offers one-to-one advice from business advisors, as well as one-to-many workshops on specialist topics including impact measurement and market research and is viewed as an exemplar service internationally.
Through Scotland’s Social Enterprise Action Plan 2021-2024, the Scottish Government has committed to: work with sector partners and national agencies to enhance the national ecosystem of support for new-start social enterprises and a pipeline of support throughout their journey; ensure that our mainstream business support services continue to recognise and appropriately support social enterprises, while at the same time enhancing specialist provision. The current contract expires in May 2023 and the Scottish Government will be inviting tenders for a new contract during 2022.
That is why we have published a Prior Information Notice and survey to provide potential bidders and those with an interest in the service and how it is delivered to shape the new contract to ensure it continues to meet the needs of the third sector going forward.
To ensure that the PIN survey attracts as many responses as possible, we would be really grateful if you could please promote the survey across your networks, through your social media channels by re-Tweeting our Twitter post, newsletters or any other ways in which you see fit. The survey will be open until 24 June 2022 for completion.
Survey responses will inform the future development of the business support contract for the third sector in Scotland so please do get involved and encourage your networks to get involved by sharing the link widely. Please click on the following links to access the survey: