To meet the business ives described in the tender specification and support this programme of work, the DfE requires a fully managed service where:

• information, coordination and administrative support will be provided to local authorities grouped in regional partnerships to assess an anticipated application pool of c.6 000 — 8 000 and recruit 700 applicants to the seventh cohort of the step up to social work programme.

• support will be provided to regional partnerships in planning the recruitment of applicants, via an IT-d application data capture system that will be designed and hosted, with administrative support and staffing function for both stage one application assessment and stage two regional partnership assessment centres.

• the contractor shall perform a dual role in respect of applicants to the programme, namely:

— an ongoing quality assurance function to regional partnerships and DfE on applications and applicant tracking at all stages of the process from ap