Public procurement notice: Modification Of A Contract/Concession During Its Term
Published: 2023-01-31
Buyer: Scottish Government
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 72314000: Data collection and collation services | 72316000: Data analysis services | 73000000 | 73110000 | 73200000

Technical requirements: The contract involved the provision of the PISA assessment in up to 120 secondary schools, with up to 4000 pupils. The assessment is computer based, covering maths, reading and science (majoring on maths in 2021) and the additional assessment domain of creative thinking. The contractor will act as the designated National Centre for Scotland and will ensure delivery of the assessment according to the OECD’s strict criteria. The contractor will be responsible for: validating and testing new assessment items in maths and creative thinking; sampling schools; sampling pupils within schools; testing the software delivery system on school IT networks; delivering a 3-hour assessment and questionnaire; coding, cleaning and submitting data within the OECD’s deadlines; verifying the accuracy of the data returned by the OECD; and delivering match datasets for further linkage and analysis. Contractors will be required to produce reports on the conduct of the survey and deliver their final dataset. The Main survey fieldwork will take place in October/November 2021, with a full field trial in March 2020.
This contract does not include production of the final report, which is carried out by the Scottish Government
Award Criteria Questions, weightings and technical scoring (0-4)methodolgy guidance can befound in the ITT.
The contract involves the provision of the PISA assessment in up to 120 secondary schools, with up to 4000 pupils. The assessment is computer based, covering maths, reading and science (majoring on maths in 2021) and the additional assessment domain of creative thinking. The contractor will act as the designated National Centre for Scotland and will ensure delivery of the assessment according to the OECD’s strict criteria. The contractor will be responsible for: validating and testing new assessment items in maths and creative thinking; sampling schools; sampling pupils within schools; testing the software delivery system on school IT networks; delivering a 3-hour assessment and questionnaire; coding, cleaning and submitting data within the OECD’s deadlines; verifying the accuracy of the data returned by the OECD; and delivering match datasets for further linkage and analysis. Contractors will be required to produce reports on the conduct of the survey and deliver their final dataset. The Main survey fieldwork will take place in October/November 2021, with a full field trial in March 2020.
This contract does not include production of the final report, which is carried out by the Scottish Government
-	The PISA assessments were postponed by one year by the OECD / PISA Governing Board which necessitates a 12 month extension to the contract
-	The costs of the extension and additional requirements (addition of a Global Crisis Module and requirement to recruit two colleges to survey sample) mean an overall increase of 17,555 GBP. This is required to meet the international requirements asked for by the OECD who oversee the survey
Due to the impact of the pandemic and subsequent school building closures, the OECD took the decision to postpone the 2021 assessments until 2022.  The international postponement took the assessments out with the original contract, which means that a contract extension or NCA is required.


Winner: National Foundation for Educational Research