Answering a council tender
What does the tender ask for, and what market evidence do we need for the market understanding question?
Upload the tender documents. Ask Orrery lists the requirements and weightings, flags any you may not meet, and drafts the market understanding answer from Orrery's data for the zones in the tender.
When people use it: When a council tender or framework opens.
How it works, step by step
Upload the tender
PDF and Word tender packs are read page by page.
Requirements and risks
Requirements such as paying for travel time change your costs: check them against your payroll first.
Market evidence
The figures behind the market answer, with sources.
What you upload
- The tender specification and evaluation documents
- Optionally, your own figures (pay rates, visits, capacity)
Files are stored privately for your account, never shared with anyone and never used to train AI. You can delete them at any time. Spreadsheets, CSV, PDF and Word files all work, in your own layout.
Try it with sample files
Made up files for a made up provider, Example Care Group, so you can see what Ask Orrery does with them.
Questions you can ask
- “Summarise this tender: what is being bought, the price cap, the requirements and the evaluation weights. Flag anything our payroll suggests we might not meet.”
- “Draft a 1,000 word answer to the market understanding question for Kent, using Orrery's data on population, demand, competition and recruitment.”
Ask the data in plain English
A real question and answer from Ask Orrery, the assistant inside the platform, using the Example Care Group sample files above (October 2026). It works from your files and Orrery's data, and shows its sources.
This is the Sample County Council home care framework 2027 in your uploaded specification. On your September payroll, the main gap is unpaid travel time, and I think it would also put some carers below the National Living Wage (NLW) for all working time.
What is being bought
- Home care in four zones (North, South, East, West), about 38,000 hours a month in total.
- You can bid for up to two zones.
- The contract starts 1 April 2027 for four years, with an option of two more. Bids close 30 November 2026.
- Visits must be at least 30 minutes, except for checks agreed in the care plan.
Price cap
- One hourly rate per zone, and bids above £29.50 an hour are rejected.
- Prices are fixed for year one. Later uplifts follow the NLW and CPI (Schedule 4).
Requirements
- CQC registration for personal care, rated Good or Outstanding, or a plan to reach Good within 12 months.
- Electronic call monitoring for every visit, shared weekly.
- Care workers paid for travel time and at least the NLW for all working time.
- New packages started within 48 hours in at least 80% of cases.
- An office in the zone or within 10 miles.
Evaluation weights
- Q1 Local market: 15%
- Q2 Recruitment and retention, including pay and travel time: 20%
- Q3 Quality, safety and outcomes: 20%
- Q4 Capacity and fast starts: 15%
- Q5 Social value: 10%
- Price: 20%
What your payroll suggests you may not meet
- Travel time is not paid. The Example Home Care payroll for September 2026 records 481.26 travel hours and pays 0. At current rates, paying them would cost about £7,160 a month (my calculation).
- NLW for all working time. The NLW is £12.71 (Orrery policy summary). If contact pay is spread over contact plus travel hours, my calculation puts 10 of 28 carers below £12.71. These are mostly those on £14.20 and £14.50, and I excluded mileage. Please check this with your adviser.
- Visit length. In the 1 to 14 September visit log, 30-minute planned visits averaged about 25.6 actual minutes (my calculation). That could be a problem against the 30-minute minimum.
Gaps in what I could check
- I could only retrieve the specification up to Q1. Detail on Q2 to Q5 may be missing.
- Your files don't show your CQC rating, call monitoring, the 48-hour start rate or office location.
Orrery's "framework-tender" and "tender-response" guides cover how to approach a bid like this. I can open either for you.
Ask, chart and report, in plain English
Ask Orrery answers from Orrery's data and your own files, draws charts on request and builds reports you can save as PDF. These are real examples made with the sample files.
- Ask Orrery drafts; you edit. Evaluators reward specific local evidence and your own experience.
Answer this with your own files
Subscribers get every guide, chart and projection for all 153 councils, Ask Orrery with private uploads of their own files, and every council report.
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