The Department for Education has batted away claims that it unlawfully overruled the scores of a major group of training providers in the latest adult education budget procurement.
Revised defence documents were filed by DfE lawyers on Friday in response to fresh allegations raised by Learning Curve Group (LCG) and its seven subsidiary training companies last month.
LCG launched a High Court case in August demanding a re-run of the £75 million procurement after all eight of its bids were unsuccessful. They claimed that the department breached its duties under procurement regulations in its evaluation of their bid, and were “deprived of a reach chance of winning a contract”.
The case rests on a row over Learning Curve’s Q1B1 submission – a template for bidders’ mobilisation and delivery plan which the DfE said should have included forecasts for training courses and learner numbers. A strict two-page limit was in place on the template, and bidders needed to score of at least 75 (good) to be successful.
