RM6397 Lot 7 of 12
RM6397 Lot 7: Legal Supply
Solicitors, barristers, paralegals and legal support staff for NHS and public sector legal functions. Part of the £2 billion excluding VAT (£2.5 billion including VAT) NHS Workforce Alliance framework, which replaces RM6281 (clinical and healthcare staffing) and RM6277 (non-clinical staffing).
Submissions close 3pm on Monday 21 September 2026 (11 days remaining). Clarification questions close 3pm on 2 September 2026.
Lot 7 at a glance
- Framework
- RM6397 Clinical and Non-Clinical Temporary and Permanent Staff
- Buyer
- Government Commercial Agency, for the NHS Workforce Alliance
- Submissions close
- 3pm on Monday 21 September 2026
- Clarifications close
- 3pm on 2 September 2026
- Framework value
- £2 billion excluding VAT (£2.5 billion including VAT)
- Term
- Four years from February 2027
- Portal
- CCS/GCA Bravo Solution (Jaggaer)
- Supplier numbers on this lot
- Indicated as unlimited
- Staff groups in scope
- Solicitors and barristers across public, employment, clinical negligence, commercial and property law, legal executives, paralegals, and legal secretaries and support staff.
Who should bid this lot
Legal recruitment agencies, locum solicitor providers, paralegal staffing specialists, and agencies supplying in-house public sector legal teams.
The general rule across RM6397 is to bid the lots you can evidence rather than the lots you would like to hold. Evaluators score depth of evidence per lot, not breadth of ambition, and providers who bid three lots properly consistently outperform those who spread thin across eight.
The compliance discriminator for Lot 7
SRA or Bar Standards Board registration and practising certificate currency, conflict-of-interest handling, and confidentiality arrangements. Legal supply into NHS bodies frequently touches clinical negligence and employment matters where conflict checking across concurrent placements is a real operational requirement rather than a formality.
What actually scores
Specialism depth in the areas NHS and public sector legal teams actually buy: clinical negligence, employment, procurement and commercial, information governance and property. Evidence named in-house teams supplied, placement durations, and how you conflict-check across a client base that includes opposing parties.
The mistake that loses marks on this lot
Presenting a general legal recruitment offer. Public sector legal buyers have narrow, specific gaps, usually in clinical negligence or employment, and an agency that leads with breadth rather than the two or three specialisms it genuinely supplies reads as a switchboard rather than a specialist.
Lot 7 questions
Is the legal lot worth bidding for a small specialist agency?
Often yes. Legal supply is a comparatively low-volume, high-specificity lot, and buyers value depth in a narrow specialism over general coverage. A small agency with genuine clinical negligence or NHS employment law supply and named references can compete well against larger generalists here.
How do conflicts of interest get handled across public sector clients?
This is an operational question the evaluator expects a real answer to, not a policy statement. Describe how you identify a potential conflict before a placement, what you do when a placed lawyer's client is in dispute with another of your clients, and who makes the decision. Vagueness here is read as inexperience in legal supply specifically.
Lot names, the framework value and the timetable were last reviewed on 21 August 2026. Published summaries of RM6397 differ on the submission date and on the term commencement, so treat the ITT on the CCS/GCA Bravo Solution (Jaggaer) portal as the only authority. See the full RM6397 guide for the detail on those discrepancies.
The other eleven RM6397 lots
Most providers bid more than one. Each lot has its own regulator, evidence expectations and characteristic failure mode.
See also the RM6397 framework guide, the NHS tender pipeline and the NHS Workforce Alliance overview.
Bidding Lot 7? The evidence is the work
Getting fill rates, compliance audit outcomes and named contract references out of your operational systems and written to the published criteria is what decides the score, and it is the part providers start too late. Call 020 3668 5488 or send us the deadline and we will come back with a Teams time.
RM6397 Lot 7: Legal Supply
Which lots are you bidding, and what does your legal supply evidence look like today?