Guidance and Counselling Tenders and Contracts

Guidance and counselling services cover employee assistance and workplace counselling, student and school counselling, and careers guidance and advice for young people or jobseekers. Some contracts bundle these together, others are let separately.

Stotles brings together guidance and counselling tenders and contracts from 100+ portals into one search, so you do not have to check each portal separately, and you can set alerts for new opportunities across the UK and Ireland.

If you want to search the government portals directly, Find a Tender carries higher-value contracts across the UK and Contracts Finder carries lower-value contracts in England. Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales and eTendersNI cover Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Ireland's eTenders covers Irish public bodies, and many councils, NHS bodies and housing associations publish on their own e-tendering portals such as ProContract. Employee assistance and counselling are often called off from occupational health frameworks such as YPO's, and student counselling is let by universities as standalone contracts.

Guidance and counselling tenders are scored on clinical governance, counsellor qualifications, access and waiting times, safeguarding and price per session. Many contracts are below threshold under the light touch regime, so specialist local providers compete well.

Counsellors are expected to be registered with or accredited by a recognised body such as the BACP or UKCP, and staff working with children need the right DBS checks. Tenders usually set minimum insurance cover, check financial standing and ask for evidence of similar services at selection stage. Under the Procurement Act 2023, suppliers can be excluded for certain criminal convictions, insolvency or failure to pay tax.

Many guidance and counselling contracts run as open tenders for a single supplier, awarded under the Procurement Act's light touch regime for health and social services. Larger public bodies sometimes call off from an existing framework agreement or set up a panel of providers instead of running a fresh competition.

Councils, NHS trusts and integrated care boards, universities and combined authorities are regular buyers. Fire and rescue authorities and central government departments also run these contracts for staff wellbeing.

Yes. Many notices are below-threshold contracts aimed at a single specialist provider, such as a local counselling charity or an occupational health firm. Larger authority-wide contracts, like an employee assistance programme, draw bigger national providers.

Read student wellbeing strategies, mental health charter plans, employee wellbeing programmes and expiry dates for existing counselling contracts, which show work coming due ahead of a notice. On Stotles you can track those signals and the buyers behind them, then follow a notice from pre-tender through to award.

Guidance and counselling notices carry 85312320 (Counselling services), 85312300 (Guidance and counselling services) and 85312310 (Guidance services).