RM6399 Consultancy and Professional Services: Live Tender, Lots, Weightings and Deadline
RM6399 Consultancy and Professional Services is live. The Government Commercial Agency published the tender on Find a Tender on 15 September 2026: ten lots, £5 billion excluding VAT, up to 500 suppliers, let under the Procurement Act 2023 and replacing RM6309 MCF4. Clarification questions close at 3pm on 22 October 2026 and submissions close at 3pm on Monday 9 November 2026 on the BravoSolution portal. That is 32 days from today.
Key facts at a glance
- Reference
- RM6399 Consultancy and Professional Services
- Buyer
- Government Commercial Agency (formerly CCS), Liverpool
- Tender notice
- Find a Tender 2026/S 000-087183, published 15 September 2026
- Clarification deadline
- 3pm on Thursday 22 October 2026
- Submission deadline
- 3pm on Monday 9 November 2026
- Award decision
- 1 June 2027 (estimated)
- Framework term
- 24 June 2027 to 23 June 2031 (estimated), four years
- Estimated value
- £5 billion excluding VAT (£6 billion including VAT)
- Lots
- Ten, from Multidisciplinary to Restructuring and Insolvency
- Maximum suppliers
- 500 across all ten lots
- Award method on call-off
- With or without further competition
- Supplier levy
- 1% of all charges invoiced under call-off contracts
- Procedure
- Procurement Act 2023, open procedure, UK4 tender notice
- Portal
- CCS/GCA BravoSolution (Jaggaer), crowncommercialservice.bravosolution.co.uk
- Replaces
- RM6309 Management Consultancy Framework Four (MCF4)
- Suitability flagged
- SMEs and VCSEs on all ten lots
The ten lots, the values and the weightings
The notice publishes an estimated value and an award weighting for every lot. Eight of the ten are scored 90 percent on quality and 10 percent on price. Lot 10 is 70 and 30. Lot 1 is the inversion: 80 percent price, 20 percent quality, with a £2 million call-off cap including VAT and extensions. Which lots you bid, and how you write and price each one, follows from that table.
| Lot | Estimated value ex VAT | Quality | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lot 1: Multidisciplinary | £600 million | 20% | 80% |
| Lot 2: Strategy and Policy | £850 million | 90% | 10% |
| Lot 3: Transformation | £2 billion | 90% | 10% |
| Lot 4: Finance | £350 million | 90% | 10% |
| Lot 5: HR | £200 million | 90% | 10% |
| Lot 6: Procurement | £300 million | 90% | 10% |
| Lot 7: Health and Social Care | £300 million | 90% | 10% |
| Lot 8: Infrastructure and Public Services | £200 million | 90% | 10% |
| Lot 9: Environment and Sustainability | £125 million | 90% | 10% |
| Lot 10: Restructuring and Insolvency | £75 million | 70% | 30% |
Source: Find a Tender notice 2026/S 000-087183, published 15 September 2026. Lot values may be shared between lots. Lot 1 carries a £2 million maximum call-off value including VAT and extensions.
Each lot has its own page covering who should bid it, what the evaluator is reading for, and the mistake that loses marks there. Start with the lot nearest your core work rather than the largest lot, because the £2 billion Transformation lot is also where the most capable competitors will concentrate.
What the 90 percent quality weighting means for your bid
On Lots 2 to 9 the written response is the competition. Price moves the result only at the margin, and a firm that discounts heavily to win a 90 percent quality lot is giving away four years of margin that would not have changed the outcome. The money and the time go into evidence.
Evidence on a consultancy framework means named engagements with the client, the problem, the intervention and the measured result, written to the lot rather than to the firm. A 14 day process reduced to 4 and held for a year is evidence. A programme delivered on time is a schedule. Evaluators reading forty transformation submissions in a week reward the number they can check.
The people are the product. Named individuals, their credentials, their sector experience and their availability carry weight a corporate capability statement does not. CVs written as career histories rather than as evidence against the lot are the most common source of lost marks on professional services frameworks.
Lot 1 is different. At 80 percent price, the rate card decides and the quality response can only lose. If you bid Lot 1 alongside specialist lots, model the rate cards together, because buyers will see both once the framework is live.
What has to happen between now and 9 November
Clarification questions close at 3pm on 22 October 2026. Anything in the ITT you do not understand, any condition of participation you are not sure you meet, any scope boundary that affects your lot choice: ask it through the portal before then. Questions submitted after the deadline do not get answered, and a bid built on an assumption that turns out to be wrong is a bid that fails compliance.
Register on the BravoSolution portal and express interest in RM6399 if you have not already, because the full ITT pack, the Framework Schedule 1 specification and the conditions of participation are only visible once you have. The customer list document attached to the notice confirms the buyers: departments, NDPBs, NHS bodies, councils, police, fire and rescue, education, housing associations and charities across the UK, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man.
Decide the lots in week one, assemble the evidence in weeks two and three, write in weeks three and four, and review against the published criteria in week five with time left to fix what the review finds. Glaxtons targets submission at least five working days before any portal deadline, because BravoSolution congestion on deadline day is not a risk a four year framework place should carry.
The week-by-week version is in the five week RM6399 plan, and the dated timeline is on the RM6399 deadline page.
If you hold a place on RM6309 MCF4
Assume you are rebidding. The GCA agreement page states that RM6399 replaces RM6309 Management Consultancy Framework Four, and framework places are not carried across to a replacement agreement. An incumbent that treats the successor as a formality is the most predictable loser in any framework refresh.
Your advantage is real but it is not automatic. Call-off delivery data under MCF4, customer satisfaction evidence and contract performance records are exactly what a new submission needs, and a challenger cannot produce them. What costs incumbents marks is assuming the evaluator already knows their record and writing a thinner answer than a new entrant would.
The lot structure has also changed. Map your MCF4 lots and your live call-offs onto the ten RM6399 lots before you decide where to bid, and note that Lot 1 is price-led in a way that may not suit a firm that won MCF4 work on quality.
What Glaxtons does on RM6399
Lot selection against your evidence, not your ambition, including the Lot 1 price-versus-quality decision. A compliance matrix built from the ITT on the portal so nothing is missed. Evidence assembly: case studies with numbers, CVs written to the lot, social value and carbon reduction plans in the right legal entity. Quality responses written to the published criteria and reviewed against them by someone who did not write them. Portal submission managed to our five working day rule.
Fixed fees agreed before we start, scoped per lot. If the opportunity is not winnable for you we say so in the first conversation, because a bid you were never going to win costs more than the fee.
We do not publish client names without written authorisation. We can say that our framework work this year includes winning submissions on Pagabo Major Works 2026 and full submissions delivered on CWAS3 RM6320 and RM6397, both now in evaluation, and that the methodology on RM6399 is the same: written to score, built from your evidence, and left with you as a bid library you own.
Frequently asked questions
What is RM6399?
RM6399 Consultancy and Professional Services is a Government Commercial Agency framework let under the Procurement Act 2023, replacing RM6309 Management Consultancy Framework Four. It gives central government and the wider public sector a compliant route to buy consultancy across ten lots: multidisciplinary, strategy and policy, transformation, finance, HR, procurement, health and social care, infrastructure and public services, environment and sustainability, and restructuring and insolvency.
When is the RM6399 submission deadline?
3pm on Monday 9 November 2026, via the CCS/GCA BravoSolution portal, according to Find a Tender notice 2026/S 000-087183 published on 15 September 2026. Clarification questions close at 3pm on 22 October 2026.
How much is RM6399 worth and how many suppliers will be appointed?
The notice gives an estimated value of £5 billion excluding VAT, £6 billion including VAT, over an estimated term of 24 June 2027 to 23 June 2031. The framework is capped at 500 suppliers across all ten lots. Suppliers pay a 1 percent levy on all charges invoiced under call-off contracts.
How are RM6399 bids scored?
Lots 2 to 9 are scored 90 percent quality and 10 percent price. Lot 10 Restructuring and Insolvency is 70 percent quality and 30 percent price. Lot 1 Multidisciplinary is 80 percent price and 20 percent quality, and carries a £2 million maximum call-off value including VAT and extensions. The question set and sub-weightings are in the ITT on the portal.
When will RM6399 be awarded and when does it start?
The notice estimates the award decision for 1 June 2027 and the contract dates as 24 June 2027 to 23 June 2031. Both are estimates and published procurement timetables move, but the direction is fixed: award in mid 2027 and a four year term.
Does RM6399 replace MCF4?
Yes. The GCA agreement page states that RM6399 Consultancy and Professional Services will replace RM6309 Management Consultancy Framework Four. Places are not carried across, so MCF4 suppliers need to bid RM6399 to keep the route.
Can an SME win a place on RM6399?
Yes. The notice flags every lot as particularly suitable for SMEs and VCSEs, and with quality at 90 percent on most lots the competition is on evidence rather than on size. A specialist with three engagements it can describe to the number competes directly with a large firm submitting a general capability statement.
Is it too late to start an RM6399 bid?
No. There are 32 days to the deadline. A focused two or three lot bid is achievable in that time if the evidence exists, and the first conversation is about whether it does. Call 020 3668 5488 and we will tell you honestly.
Bidding RM6399? Get a straight answer this week
Tell us which lots you are considering and what evidence you hold. A director will come back the same working day with whether the bid is winnable, which lots to bid, and a fixed fee.
RM6399 closes in 32 days. Decide this week.
Ten lots, 500 places and a 90 percent quality weighting on most of them. The firms that win will be the ones whose evidence was assembled before the writing started. Tell us what you sell and who you sell it to, and we will tell you which lots to bid and what it will take. Call 020 3668 5488.