Writing the mobilisation plan in a tender

What the buyer is really asking

Mobilisation, implementation and transition all mean the period between contract award and the service running. The government's Sourcing Playbook calls mobilisation “a key phase in setting up an outsourcing project for success” and tells buyers to set aside enough time for it. It also asks them to consider a phased introduction rather than a single switch on day one. The Playbook is written mainly for central government, but other public bodies are asked to consider it, and its thinking shows up in tender questions everywhere.

An evaluator reading your plan is looking for:

• Named people. Who leads mobilisation, who deputises, and how much of their time it takes.
• A dated timeline from award to go-live, with the steps the buyer and the incumbent must take as well as yours.
• Staff. Whether anyone transfers under TUPE, and how you will recruit, vet and train anyone new.
• Systems and data. What you need access to, what the incumbent hands over, and how you check it.
• Risks and mitigations that belong to this contract, not a generic list.
• Performance from day one. How you will report against the KPIs from the first week, not month three.

Build the legal steps into your timeline

Award notice and standstill

For contracts above the procurement thresholds, the buyer must send every assessed bidder an assessment summary and then publish a contract award notice before it signs (section 50). Publishing the notice starts the mandatory standstill: eight working days during which the contract cannot be entered into (section 51). Standstill does not apply to some contracts, including call-offs under a framework and light touch contracts, though a buyer can choose a voluntary standstill of at least eight working days.

So “week 1” of your plan should start at contract signature, not at the day you hear you have won. Say so in the answer. Work you choose to start before signature, such as lining up recruits, is at your own risk, and a good plan makes clear which activities are which. After signature, the buyer must publish a contract details notice within 30 days (section 53), and for most contracts over £5 million a copy of the contract itself within 90 days.

Staff transfer (TUPE)

When a contract ends and passes to a new contractor, employees clearly identified as providing that service may move to the new contractor under TUPE (GOV.UK: business transfers and TUPE). Two duties shape your timeline:

• The outgoing employer must give you employee liability information (identity, age, terms, recent disciplinary and grievance cases, claims and collective agreements) at least 28 days before the transfer (TUPE regulation 11).
• The outgoing employer must inform and consult representatives of affected staff “long enough before” the transfer, and that includes telling them what measures you plan for the transferring staff. You must give the outgoing employer that information in time for it to do so (TUPE regulation 13). There is no fixed number of days, so build in time.

If the tender documents mention transferring staff, take advice before you price, because their terms come with them. The bid or no bid guide covers TUPE as a go or no-go factor.

KPIs from day one

For contracts worth more than £5 million, the buyer must normally set and publish at least three KPIs before signing (section 52) and assess performance against them at least once a year (section 71). Smaller contracts usually have service levels too. Show that your reporting is ready at go-live: agree the baseline and report format during mobilisation, and say when the first report lands.

An example: an eight-week mobilisation

An illustration for a modest service contract, such as cleaning or grounds maintenance for a council, with a handful of staff transferring from the incumbent. Adapt it to the buyer's start date and your own team. Week 1 starts at contract signature, after standstill.

The incumbent's exit

Your mobilisation is the other half of someone else's exit. The Sourcing Playbook says contracts should include a requirement for an exit plan that joins the outgoing supplier's exit with the incoming supplier's mobilisation, covering activities and milestones, roles, a joint risk register, interfaces and dependencies, TUPE information where relevant, and asset registers and transfers. It also says exit provisions should require the outgoing supplier to provide accurate, up to date information for retendering.

The exact exit duties are in the incumbent's contract, which you usually cannot see. Ask in a clarification question what exit obligations exist, what data and assets will transfer, and who coordinates the handover. Then write your plan to fit, and say what you will do if the handover is incomplete.

Common mistakes

• A generic Gantt chart with no names, dates or dependencies.
• Starting the clock at the award decision and ignoring standstill and signature.
• Promising staff you have not got, with no recruitment plan or timeline.
• Ignoring TUPE when the tender documents mention transferring staff.
• Risks copied from a template (“key staff leave”) with no mitigation that fits this contract.
• No plan for reporting until the service has “bedded in”.
• A mobilisation team larger than the firm, which an evaluator will notice.

Making it credible at small-firm scale

A small firm cannot field a dedicated mobilisation team, and the buyer knows that. Be honest and specific instead. Name the director who leads it and say what share of their time it takes for eight weeks. Name a deputy. Say which existing staff move across and how their current work is covered. If you use subcontractors, name them and say what is agreed. Point to a previous start-up, public or private, with a date and what went well. A plan that a ten-person firm can plainly deliver scores better than one borrowed from a large outsourcer.

For how to structure the answer itself, see writing a tender response that scores and method statements that score. For the terms used on award and standstill notices, the tender glossary has short definitions.