Case Study

DEMIDAV LTD London Borough of Hackney — Supported Living and Residential Services Framework

Tender Overview

Hackney is not the easiest borough to break into as a social care provider. It sits in the heart of inner east London, commissions services for a large and complex adult population, and its Adult Social Care Commissioning team applies a level of scrutiny to its framework applications that reflects years of experience distinguishing between providers who are genuinely ready to operate in that environment and those who are not. The borough has a high proportion of adults with mental health needs, learning disabilities, and complex social circumstances, and the supported living and residential services it commissions are doing some of the most demanding work in the adult care sector.

The Supported Living and Residential Services framework, reference DN768761, was tendered through the ProContract eProcurement portal. It covers three lots. Lot 1 and Lot 2 operate through Hackney’s eBrokerage and Marketplace system, a digital platform through which care packages are matched to approved providers via a brokerage referral process. When a social worker or care manager in Hackney needs to source a supported living placement, the marketplace is where that search begins, and providers on Lots 1 and 2 are the organisations that appear. Lot 3 operates differently. Rather than a marketplace referral, Lot 3 placements go through a further competition process, meaning approved providers are invited to submit individual responses for specific residential packages as they come up. Each competition is judged on its own terms.

DemidavLtd applied to all three lots. AssuredBID prepared the Procurement Selection Questionnaire submission and managed the application through ProContract. On 16 July 2026, Jade Mercieca, Procurement and Commercial Manager for Adult Social Care Commissioning, wrote to confirm that DemidavLtd’s bid had been successful and that the council was minded to accept them as a provider onto the framework across all three lots, subject to the submission of insurance certificates and completion of the mandatory site form by 5pm on 31 August 2026.

The Brief

Client	DemidavLtd
Commissioner	London Borough of Hackney — Adult Social Care Commissioning, Adults, Children and Integrated Health
Contract	Provision of Supported Living and Residential Services
Reference	DN768761
Portal	ProContract
Commissioner Contact	ascprocurement@hackney.gov.uk
Lots Awarded	Lot 1 — Supported Living (Call-off); Lot 2 — Residential (Call-off); Lot 3 — Residential (Further Competition)
Award Date	16 July 2026
Mandatory Site Form Deadline	31 August 2026
Result	Successful — All Three Lots

Key Challenges

The first thing to understand about this procurement is that it was not a scored quality tender. There were no method statement questions, no marks available for a compelling narrative about care delivery, and no price submission that could give one provider an edge over another. The entire award was based on successfully passing the Procurement Selection Questionnaire, including every Condition of Participation set out in the tender documents. That means the submission either met every requirement or it did not. There was no partial credit, no weighting system that allowed strength in one area to compensate for weakness in another, and no opportunity to clarify or supplement a response after submission.

That structure is deceptively demanding. A PSQ feels like a compliance exercise, and in one sense it is. But compliance exercises fail when organisations treat them as paperwork to get through rather than assessments to pass. Hackney’s Conditions of Participation covered organisational and financial standing, CQC registration and compliance history, safeguarding arrangements, data protection governance, insurance cover, management structure, and the capacity to deliver across the three lots applied for. Each of those areas had to be addressed with current, accurate, and properly evidenced information. An organisation that is well-run but presents its evidence poorly, or that submits outdated documentation, can fail a PSQ that it should comfortably have passed. Our PSQ and qualification stage bid writing service is specifically designed around making sure that does not happen.

The insurance requirements set by Hackney were specific and non-negotiable. Employer’s Liability cover had to be in place at a minimum of £5 million. Public Liability had to be at a minimum of £10 million. Professional Indemnity had to be at a minimum of £2 million. Both Public Liability and Professional Indemnity had to include medical malpractice cover where appropriate given the nature of the services being delivered. Critically, Hackney was explicit that these had to be actual policies, not quotes. A provider that had coverage at a lower level, or whose documentation was in the form of a quote pending renewal, would not have been able to satisfy this requirement at the point of submission.

Applying across three lots rather than one also created a practical challenge around scope. Supported living and residential services are related but they are not the same thing, and the regulatory, staffing, and governance requirements that apply to each have important differences. A PSQ submission that treats the three lots as interchangeable and fails to address the specific operational and compliance requirements relevant to each service type risks falling short where those differences matter most to the evaluation panel. Hackney’s commissioning team is experienced enough to spot a submission that has been written generically rather than one that reflects a genuine understanding of what delivering each type of service actually involves.

Our Approach

What we did

The first step was a thorough review of DemidavLtd’s existing documentation before any part of the PSQ was completed. This is not a formality. It is the step that determines the quality of everything that follows. We went through DemidavLtd’s CQC registration records and most recent inspection outcomes, their existing insurance policies and coverage levels, their financial statements and accounts, their safeguarding policies and designated safeguarding lead arrangements, their data protection governance documentation including their GDPR compliance framework, and their management structure and the qualifications and experience of the people running the organisation.

That review produced a clear picture: what was in good order and ready to use, what needed to be updated before it could be submitted, and where DemidavLtd needed to develop documentation that did not yet exist in a form that would satisfy the Conditions of Participation. Working through that process at the start rather than discovering gaps mid-submission is what allows a PSQ to be completed properly and submitted with confidence rather than under pressure.

The safeguarding section required particular attention. Hackney commissions supported living and residential services for some of the most vulnerable adults in one of London’s most complex boroughs. Its commissioning team takes safeguarding governance seriously, and the PSQ reflected that expectation. The response described DemidavLtd’s designated safeguarding lead arrangements, the training framework in place for all staff including mandatory safeguarding training and how it is kept current, the policies governing how concerns are raised and responded to, how safeguarding is embedded in day-to-day management, and how the organisation works with Hackney’s safeguarding adults board and other statutory partners when concerns arise. None of that was described in general terms. It was described in terms of how DemidavLtd specifically operates, because a generic safeguarding response tells an experienced evaluator very little about whether an organisation actually understands and practises what it is describing. Our safeguarding and governance evidence guidance was central to how we structured this part of the submission.

The financial standing section was completed with supporting documentation that accurately represented DemidavLtd’s financial position. For a borough like Hackney that is placing vulnerable adults with providers on long-term supported living and residential arrangements, the financial stability of those providers is a genuine concern. A provider that passes the financial standing requirement is confirming to the commissioner that it has the resources to sustain its operations, meet its payroll, and continue delivering care over the full term of any packages placed with it. Getting this section right required more than providing accounts. It required presenting the financial evidence in the right format and at the right level of detail for Hackney’s assessors.

The data protection and information governance section addressed DemidavLtd’s compliance with UK GDPR in the context of health and social care, including how personal and sensitive data about the adults they support is collected, stored, processed, and protected. This is an area where providers operating in the care sector sometimes struggle to present their arrangements clearly, because the intersection of care delivery and data protection obligations is specific and requires a level of detail that a general GDPR policy alone does not provide.

The insurance position was confirmed and verified before submission. Employer’s Liability at £5 million, Public Liability at £10 million, and Professional Indemnity at £2 million were all confirmed as actual policies with current validity dates, with the appropriate medical malpractice extension in place. Confirming this before submission rather than after avoided any risk of the award being delayed or complicated by an insurance gap that needed to be resolved under time pressure.

The full submission was completed and uploaded through ProContract, with all required supporting documentation attached in the correct format and against the correct sections of the application. ProContract is the portal Hackney uses for all procurement activity, and familiarity with how it handles documents and submission requirements is part of getting a PSQ right. A technically complete submission that is incorrectly formatted or uploaded creates unnecessary risk that has nothing to do with the quality of the underlying content.

Outcome

On 16 July 2026, Jade Mercieca wrote to DemidavLtd on behalf of Hackney’s Adult Social Care Commissioning team to confirm that the bid had been successful across all three lots. The council expressed its intention to accept DemidavLtd as a provider onto the framework, with the formal contract to follow once insurance certificates had been submitted and the mandatory site form completed through the link provided. The deadline for both was 5pm on Monday 31 August 2026.


Lot 1 — Supported Living	Successful — Call-off via eBrokerage/Marketplace
Lot 2 — Residential	Successful — Call-off via eBrokerage/Marketplace
Lot 3 — Residential	Successful — Further Competition Process
PSQ and Conditions of Participation	Passed in Full
Notification Date	16 July 2026
Onboarding Deadline	31 August 2026

For Lots 1 and 2, DemidavLtd will be set up on Hackney’s eBrokerage and Marketplace system. When referrals for supported living or residential placements come through the council’s brokerage process, DemidavLtd will be one of the approved providers that appear to commissioners sourcing that provision. For Lot 3, the framework appointment positions DemidavLtd to receive invitations to further competitions for specific residential packages as they are issued, with each competition representing an individual opportunity to win a placement.

Conclusion

Three lot appointments on a London Borough of Hackney adult social care framework is a serious commercial achievement. Hackney is a borough with a sustained and significant demand for supported living and residential services. Its adult population includes people with complex mental health needs, learning disabilities, physical health conditions, and histories of trauma, and the providers it commissions to support those people are expected to operate to a high standard from the point they join the framework.

The PSQ result confirms that DemidavLtd’s governance, compliance, financial standing, and operational arrangements met those standards across all three lots. That is not a small thing. The same assessment that approved DemidavLtd also filtered out providers who were not ready. Being on the other side of that filter matters.

The next step is to make the most of what the framework provides. For Lots 1 and 2, that means engaging actively with the eBrokerage system, ensuring DemidavLtd’s marketplace profile is accurate and up to date, and responding promptly and well to brokerage referrals as they come in. For Lot 3, it means treating each further competition seriously and submitting strong, specific responses for the individual packages that come through. The quality of those further competition responses will determine how many residential placements DemidavLtd secures, and providers that approach them with the same care they brought to the PSQ tend to build the strongest track records within Hackney’s commissioning network. Our framework call-off and further competition writing service supports providers at exactly this stage of the process.

Building a track record in Hackney also has value beyond the borough itself. A provider that delivers well within one of London’s more demanding commissioning environments and can point to a history of referrals received and managed successfully within that context is a more credible applicant when other London boroughs and NHS commissioners in the region come to assess them for their own frameworks.

If your organisation delivers supported living or residential care and you want to get onto a London borough or NHS adult social care framework, visit www.assuredbid.co.uk or browse our case studies to see the work we have done for providers across adult social care procurement in London and across England. Our team works with providers at every stage, from initial PSQ and qualification submissions through to call-off responses and mini competition bids. Get in touch through our contact page to talk with a bid writer about your next opportunity.

Find the right contracts, get tender alerts instantly, and submit your bids — all in one place. Access now