Luton European Social Fund

Luton Borough Council has been awarded ESF Co-financing status.

Luton BC and ESF Co-financing

Luton Borough Council has been appointed as a co-financing organisation for the European Social Fund 2007 – 2013 Programme. This means that Luton can invite tenders to deliver defined training projects.  The initial award was for a total ESF value of £1,250,000 during the first funding period of 2008 to 2010.  Luton has since been awarded an additional £378,000 of funding. 

In January 2008, Luton issued a joint prospectus with Bedfordshire County Council, inviting tenders to deliver a number of training projects to provide defined outputs and outcomes. Organisations were able to tender to deliver a project in Luton only, in Bedfordshire only, or across both areas.  A copy of the presentations given at the launch event can be downloaded below, as well as a list of the questions raised and answers given at the event.

All tenders received are compared and judged through an open and competitive process as set out in the Public Contract Regulations 2006.  The results of tenders in Luton were announced on the 16th May 2008 – five of the eight contracts were let (worth a total of nearly £783,000). There were no bids of a suitable quality received for the other three projects (worth a total of £469,000). For more information on this bidding round click here.

A second tender round was launched in January 2009, for the three projects that were not let in the first round plus three further projects funded by the additional allocation (click here for more information on this call) The pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) stage closed on 10th February 2009 and 24 successful organisations were invited to submit a bid to deliver one or more of these projects.  These contracts have now been awarded - please see webpage "Award of Contracts".

Technical queries about the procurement process are handled by the e-procurement technical team.

For any other queries, please contact the ESF Team on esf@luton.gov.uk or by phone on 01582 546270.

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