{ "name": "RM6397 bidder guidance", "description": "Structured guidance notes for bidders preparing an RM6397 submission.", "publisher": "Glaxtons Consulting Limited", "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "licenseLabel": "CC BY 4.0", "attribution": "Glaxtons Consulting, https://www.glaxtons.co.uk", "url": "https://www.glaxtons.co.uk/data/rm6397-guides.json", "documentation": "https://www.glaxtons.co.uk/data/", "dateModified": "2026-09-21", "recordCount": 6, "disclaimer": "Compiled by Glaxtons Consulting from primary sources and checked on the date shown. Procurement dates and lot structures change. Always verify against the contracting authority's own notice before relying on any figure here for a submission.", "records": [ { "slug": "e-integrity-licence-and-e-learning", "order": 1, "name": "The e-Integrity licence and the 100 per cent e-learning gate", "shortName": "e-Integrity requirement", "seoTitle": "RM6397 e-Integrity Licence and E-Learning | Glaxtons", "metaDescription": "RM6397 bidders reportedly need an e-Integrity hub licence at £250 plus VAT for twelve months, and e-learning modules scored pass or fail at 100 per cent.", "leadAnswer": "Two RM6397 requirements catch suppliers out because neither is a writing problem. Access to the e-Integrity hub is reported to require a paid licence, and the associated e-learning is reported to be assessed pass or fail at 100 per cent. Both are administrative gates that can end a bid regardless of how good the responses are.", "keyFacts": [ "Reported licence cost: £250 plus VAT, giving twelve months of hub access", "Reported e-learning threshold: 100 per cent to pass, assessed pass or fail", "Reported to be re-taken annually, and again if the person who completed it leaves", "Clarifications closed 3pm on 2 September 2026, which is the last moment to ask" ], "body": [ "Take the sourcing seriously before you act on this. The licence cost and the 100 per cent threshold come from secondary reporting on the framework rather than from the tender documents we can point you at, so treat them as a strong prompt to check rather than as settled fact. The right move is not to trust this page. It is to confirm both in the ITT and, if the pack is ambiguous, to raise a clarification before 3pm on 2 September.", "That said, the shape of the requirement is the point. A pass or fail gate assessed at 100 per cent behaves nothing like a scored quality question. There is no partial credit and no recovery through a strong answer elsewhere. It is closer to an accreditation check than an evaluation, and it belongs on your compliance list beside insurance certificates and registrations, not on the writing plan.", "The renewal condition matters more than the initial completion. If the requirement is tied to a named individual and that person leaves, the obligation follows them out of the door. A framework place held for four years with a single trained person is a single point of failure, and the fix costs nothing at bid stage and a great deal later.", "The practical sequence is simple. Confirm what the pack actually requires, get the licence in place early enough that portal access is not on the critical path, put more than one person through the modules, and diarise the renewal against the framework term rather than against the person." ], "whatWeDo": [ "Confirm the requirement against the published ITT rather than against commentary, and draft the clarification if the pack is unclear", "Build the compliance matrix so administrative gates sit separately from scored questions and cannot be missed", "Track licence, e-learning and accreditation expiry against the framework term, not the submission date" ], "pitfall": "Treating it as an administrative afterthought and discovering in the final week that portal access is not in place. It is the cheapest possible way to lose a £2 billion framework bid, and it has nothing to do with the quality of your responses.", "faqs": [ { "q": "Is the e-Integrity licence definitely required?", "a": "It is widely reported as a requirement for RM6397 and the figure quoted is £250 plus VAT for twelve months. We have not been able to verify that from the tender documents on a public source, so confirm it in the ITT. If the pack does not answer it plainly, that is exactly what the clarification window before 3pm on 2 September exists for." }, { "q": "What happens if we score below 100 per cent on the e-learning?", "a": "On a pass or fail assessment there is no partial credit, which is why it is reported as a 100 per cent threshold. A strong quality submission does not compensate for a failed gate. Confirm the threshold and the retake rules in the pack before you plan around them." }, { "q": "Who in our business should complete it?", "a": "More than one person, whoever they are. If completion attaches to a named individual, a single trained person is a single point of failure across a four year framework term. Two or three people cost nothing extra at bid stage." } ] }, { "slug": "rm6281-rm6277-incumbents", "order": 2, "name": "If you hold RM6281 or RM6277, you have to rebid", "shortName": "Incumbents on RM6281 and RM6277", "seoTitle": "RM6397 Replaces RM6281 and RM6277 | Rebid Guide", "metaDescription": "RM6397 replaces RM6281 and RM6277. A place on either does not carry across. What incumbents get to reuse, and what the evaluator will not give credit for.", "leadAnswer": "RM6397 replaces RM6281 and RM6277. A place on either does not carry over. Incumbents rebid on the same terms as a supplier who has never held a place, and the ones who struggle are usually those who assumed otherwise and started late.", "keyFacts": [ "RM6397 replaces both RM6281 and RM6277", "Framework places do not transfer between generations", "Twelve lots, so incumbents must also re-decide which lots to bid", "Submissions closed 3pm on Monday 21 September 2026" ], "body": [ "Incumbency is worth a lot and none of it is entitlement. What it actually gives you is evidence: live call-off performance, fill rates, compliance audit history, real escalations and how they were resolved, and referees who have worked with you rather than been told about you. That is the strongest material any bidder can have, and most incumbents under-use it because it feels like business as usual rather than something to write down.", "What incumbency does not give you is credit for being known. The evaluator scores the submission in front of them against published criteria. An answer that gestures at an existing relationship, or assumes the reader knows how you perform, reads as thinner than an answer from a challenger who spelled everything out. This is the single most common way a strong incumbent scores below a weaker new entrant.", "The lot decision also has to be made again from scratch. Twelve lots is a different structure from the one you hold a place on, and the honest question is where your delivered volumes and compliance evidence actually sit now, not which lots you happen to be on today. Bidding a lot out of habit costs you the effort that a winnable one needed.", "Practically, the work is retrieval rather than invention. Pull your call-off data, your audit outcomes, your fill and cancellation rates and your incident records into one place, then write to the criteria from that. An incumbent who does this properly is very hard to beat. An incumbent who does not is beatable by anyone." ], "whatWeDo": [ "Turn call-off performance, audit history and compliance records into evidence written to the published criteria", "Re-run the lot decision against current delivered volumes rather than against the lots you hold today", "Read a previous submission alongside its feedback where you have it, because the same gaps usually recur" ], "pitfall": "Assuming the buyer already knows how you perform. They may, and the evaluator scoring your response does not. Everything that earns a mark has to be on the page.", "faqs": [ { "q": "Does our place on RM6281 give us any advantage?", "a": "It gives you better evidence than almost anyone else bidding, and no procedural advantage at all. The competition is fresh and the evaluation is of your submission, not your history. Incumbents who convert their delivery record into written evidence do very well. Incumbents who rely on being known do not." }, { "q": "Should we bid the same lots we hold now?", "a": "Only if your delivered volumes and compliance evidence still support them. RM6397 has twelve lots and the structure is not a copy of what you hold. Decide on the evidence, not on habit." }, { "q": "We were unsuccessful last time. Is it worth bidding again?", "a": "Usually yes, and the first thing to do is read the previous submission next to its feedback. Most repeat losses come from the same handful of gaps, and those gaps are fixable once you can see them. If the honest answer after that reading is that the lot is not winnable, we will tell you before you commit resource." } ] }, { "slug": "bid-readiness-checklist", "order": 3, "name": "The RM6397 bid readiness checklist", "shortName": "Readiness checklist", "seoTitle": "RM6397 Bid Readiness Checklist | NHS Staffing Framework", "metaDescription": "What to have in place before writing a word of an RM6397 response: registrations, compliance evidence, workforce data and referees.", "leadAnswer": "Most of the work that decides an RM6397 submission is not writing. It is retrieval: registrations, accreditations in date, workforce compliance evidence, fill and cancellation data, and referees who will answer the phone. This is the list to work through before anybody opens a response document.", "keyFacts": [ "Clarifications closed 3pm, Wednesday 2 September 2026", "Submissions closed 3pm, Monday 21 September 2026", "Twelve lots, each with its own regulator and compliance emphasis", "Portal registration is not a same-day task and is not the place to discover a problem" ], "body": [ "Start with access. Portal registration and any hub licence have to be complete and tested, by a named person, with someone else able to log in if that person is unavailable on the day. Access problems are the only category of bid failure that is entirely preventable and entirely self-inflicted.", "Then compliance, per lot. Each of the twelve lots carries its own regulator and its own emphasis: professional registration and revalidation status, DBS levels and renewal dates, right to work, mandatory training currency, indemnity, and the audit trail that proves you check all of it rather than asserting that you do. Pull the expiry dates as well as the certificates. An accreditation that lapses between submission and award is a problem you can see coming.", "Then performance data. Fill rates, time to fill, cancellation and no-show rates, escalation volumes and how they resolved, complaint and incident records with outcomes. Written with real numbers this is what separates a scoring response from a describing one, and almost nobody has it to hand when the window opens.", "Then people and referees. Named account and compliance leads with the experience to match, and referees who have been asked in advance and will actually answer. A referee who is surprised by the call is worse than no referee.", "Finally the calendar. Work backwards from 3pm on 21 September, put internal sign off before the last weekend rather than on it, and treat 2 September as a hard stop for anything you need the buyer to answer. After that date the pack says what it says." ], "whatWeDo": [ "Run the readiness pass against the published criteria and hand back the gaps that only you can close", "Build the compliance matrix per lot so nothing sits between two owners", "Set the internal timetable backwards from the deadline, with clarifications closed off by 2 September" ], "pitfall": "Opening a response document first. Writing before the evidence is assembled produces answers built on what people remember rather than what the records show, and remembered numbers do not survive an evaluator.", "faqs": [ { "q": "How long does a proper RM6397 submission take?", "a": "It depends almost entirely on how much of the evidence already exists. A supplier with portal access, current accreditations and performance data to hand can produce a strong submission in three weeks. A supplier assembling all of that from nothing in September is choosing between a rushed submission and an honest no bid." }, { "q": "What is the single most common gap?", "a": "Performance data that exists in an operational system but has never been pulled into a form anyone can quote. Fill rates and escalation outcomes are usually available and almost never at hand, and they are exactly what turns a general claim into a scoring one." }, { "q": "Can you tell us whether we should bid at all?", "a": "Yes, and we will say so plainly if the answer is no. Qualifying hard is part of the work rather than a way of avoiding it. We have told a client with roughly £5m turnover not to chase a £70m opportunity, and we would rather lose a fee than run a bid that cannot be won." } ] }, { "slug": "choosing-lots", "order": 4, "name": "Choosing which of the twelve lots to bid", "shortName": "Choosing your lots", "seoTitle": "RM6397 Lots: Which Should You Bid? | Glaxtons", "metaDescription": "RM6397 has twelve lots. How to decide which to bid on delivered volumes and compliance evidence rather than ambition, and what bidding too many costs you.", "leadAnswer": "RM6397 runs to twelve lots and each is a separate decision with its own regulator, its own compliance emphasis and its own competitive field. The suppliers who do badly are rarely the ones who picked the wrong lot. They are the ones who picked too many.", "keyFacts": [ "Twelve lots, from nursing and medical staffing through to master and neutral vendor arrangements", "Each lot carries its own regulator and its own evidence expectations", "Every additional lot is another full response inside the same window", "Submissions closed 3pm on Monday 21 September 2026" ], "body": [ "The test is delivered volume, not capability in principle. An agency that supplies a specialty occasionally can describe how it would scale, and an evaluator reading that answer next to one built on two years of actual placements will score the second higher every time. Bid the lots your records evidence.", "The second test is compliance depth. The regulatory burden is not evenly spread across the twelve lots. Medical staffing carries a heavier verification and indemnity load than most, clinical lots turn on registration and revalidation currency, and the vendor management lots are assessed on systems and governance rather than on supply. Where your compliance evidence is thin, the response will read thin no matter who writes it.", "The third test is arithmetic. Every lot is a full response, written to its own criteria, inside a window that closes at 3pm on 21 September. Three strong submissions beat seven that share paragraphs, because evaluators read a great many responses and recognise recycled material immediately.", "The vendor management lots deserve a separate decision. Master vendor and neutral vendor are different businesses from supply, assessed on technology, governance, reporting and impartiality. A supply agency bidding them because they sit on the same framework is usually spending effort that a supply lot needed." ], "whatWeDo": [ "Run the lot decision against delivered volumes and compliance evidence, and say plainly where a lot is not winnable", "Write each lot to its own criteria rather than adapting one response across several", "Sequence the work so the strongest lots are finished first, not last" ], "pitfall": "Bidding every lot you could theoretically serve. It converts a winnable submission into several mediocre ones, and mediocre does not get appointed on a competitive lot.", "faqs": [ { "q": "How many lots should we bid?", "a": "As many as your evidence genuinely supports and your capacity can write properly in the window. For most suppliers that is two to four. The number matters far less than whether each response is complete and specific." }, { "q": "Does bidding more lots improve our chances of getting on at all?", "a": "Not in the way people hope. Lots are assessed separately, so a weak response on a lot you should not have bid does not help a strong one elsewhere. It just consumes the time that strong one needed." }, { "q": "We are strong operationally but our paperwork is behind. What now?", "a": "Then the priority before writing is the evidence, not the prose. Good operational performance that cannot be evidenced scores as if it did not happen, and the fastest gains are almost always in retrieval rather than in wording." } ] }, { "slug": "clarification-deadline", "order": 5, "name": "The clarification deadline is the real constraint", "shortName": "Clarifications close 2 September", "seoTitle": "RM6397 Clarifications Closed 2 September 2026 | Glaxtons", "metaDescription": "RM6397 clarifications closed 3pm on 2 September 2026, nineteen days before submission. What was worth asking, and how to ask it on the next framework.", "leadAnswer": "RM6397 clarifications closed at 3pm on Wednesday 2 September 2026, nineteen days before the submission deadline, and submissions themselves closed on 21 September 2026. After that the pack says what it says, and any ambiguity you have not resolved becomes an assumption you carry into a £2 billion competition.", "keyFacts": [ "Clarifications closed 3pm, Wednesday 2 September 2026", "Submissions closed 3pm, Monday 21 September 2026", "Answers are normally published to all bidders, so a good question helps the field", "The clarification deadline, not the submission deadline, is usually the real constraint" ], "body": [ "The clarification window is the part of a procurement most suppliers waste. It closes early, it closes quietly, and the questions that would have been worth asking only become obvious in week three when somebody is actually drafting the answer and hits the ambiguity. By then it is too late to ask.", "The way to use it is to read the pack for decisions rather than for content, in the first days rather than the last. Anything that changes what you would write, what evidence you would supply, or which lots you would bid is a candidate question. Anything the pack already answers is not, and asking it wastes the window.", "Be aware that answers are normally published to every bidder. That is a reason to be precise rather than a reason to stay quiet. A well framed question about an evidence format or an eligibility boundary costs you nothing competitively, because the answer helps whoever was going to answer it correctly anyway. A question that reveals your commercial approach is a different matter and generally should not be asked.", "If the pack is genuinely ambiguous on a pass or fail requirement, that is the highest value question you can ask, because a misread gate ends the bid outright while a misread scored question only costs marks." ], "whatWeDo": [ "Read the pack for decision points in the first days and draft the clarifications that change what you would write", "Keep questions precise so the published answer does not hand anything away", "Close off every assumption before 2 September so nothing carries into drafting unresolved" ], "pitfall": "Reading the pack properly for the first time after the clarification window has shut. Every ambiguity then becomes an assumption, and assumptions in a competitive submission are where marks quietly go.", "faqs": [ { "q": "What is worth raising a clarification about?", "a": "Anything that changes what you would write, what you would supply as evidence, or which lots you would bid. Ambiguity on a pass or fail requirement is the highest value of all, because misreading a gate ends the bid rather than costing marks." }, { "q": "Will asking a question show our hand?", "a": "Not if it is framed properly. Questions about evidence formats, eligibility boundaries and requirement thresholds are safe and the published answer helps the field equally. Questions that reveal your commercial approach are a different category and generally should not be asked." }, { "q": "What if we spot a problem after 2 September?", "a": "You take a documented view, apply it consistently across every answer, and state the assumption where the response allows it. That is a worse position than having asked, which is exactly why the first week matters more than it feels like it does." } ] }, { "slug": "writing-to-score", "order": 6, "name": "Writing an RM6397 response that scores", "shortName": "Writing to score", "seoTitle": "How to Write an RM6397 Response That Scores | Glaxtons", "metaDescription": "Most RM6397 responses describe the agency instead of answering the question. How evaluators band answers, and what moves a response up a band.", "leadAnswer": "Most losing responses from capable agencies contain the right evidence in the wrong shape. They describe the business rather than answering the question that was published, and an evaluator working to a band rubric can only award marks for what the criteria ask about.", "keyFacts": [ "Responses are marked against published criteria and weightings, in bands", "Evaluators give no benefit of the doubt: an implied answer scores as an absent one", "Character budgets are hard limits, and a rewrite has to land inside the same budget", "Future tense presented as current practice is a standard markdown" ], "body": [ "Band rubrics are unforgiving in a specific way. The gap between a middle and a top band is usually not quality of prose, it is presence of specifics: a number, a named system, a dated example, a stated outcome. Two responses can describe the same genuine capability and score a band apart because one of them evidenced it and the other asserted it.", "The most common markdown is describing the company rather than answering the question. It happens because the person who knows the business best writes about the business, while the evaluator is holding a scoring matrix that asks something narrower. Reading the criteria back to yourself sentence by sentence, and asking which words earn a mark, catches most of it.", "The second most common is future tense presented as current practice. An assessor reads will implement as do not currently do, and marks it accordingly. If a process is genuinely planned rather than live, say so and evidence the plan. Claiming it as current is both a markdown and, in a public procurement, a risk you do not want.", "The third is unverifiable numbers. A percentage without a denominator or a source is worth less than a smaller number that can be checked, because the assessor's mandate is protecting public money and they extend no benefit of the doubt. Our own published figure is 93 per cent across more than 500 submissions between 2022 and 2025, and we quote the denominator every time for exactly this reason.", "The last is the character budget. Going over is not a style issue, it is a compliance one, and a rewrite that fixes an answer but breaks the limit has not fixed anything." ], "whatWeDo": [ "Write every response against the published criteria and weightings rather than against a template", "Run an assessor-standard review before submission: a mark per criterion, the reason for each markdown, and rewritten text inside the same character budget", "Hand back the evidence gaps early, because those are the ones only you can close" ], "pitfall": "Reviewing your own work. Authors read their intended meaning into a sentence that does not carry it, and the evaluator, who has no such context and a rubric in front of them, awards the lower band.", "faqs": [ { "q": "What does an assessor-standard review actually produce?", "a": "A mark per criterion against the published bands, the specific reason for every markdown, rewritten text for the sentences costing marks, and a list of evidence gaps only you can fill. It is written to be acted on in the days before submission." }, { "q": "Can you guarantee a score or a place on the framework?", "a": "No. The evaluation belongs to the buyer and no consultancy controls it. Treat anyone who promises otherwise with caution. What can be committed to is the work: directors on the engagement, every response written to the published criteria, an independent scored review before submission, and the portal submission handled with acknowledgement obtained." }, { "q": "How early should the review happen?", "a": "Early enough to act on it, which means at least a week before submission rather than the day before. A review that surfaces a missing referee or a lapsed accreditation is only worth having while there is time to fix it." } ] } ] }