RM6399 Lot 5 of 10
RM6399 Lot 5: HR
HR consultancy across the full employee lifecycle, supporting the strategic alignment, operational delivery and cultural development of an organisation's workforce. Part of the £5 billion excluding VAT (£6 billion including VAT) Consultancy and Professional Services framework, which replaces RM6309 Management Consultancy Framework Four (MCF4).
Submissions close 3pm on Monday 9 November 2026 (32 days remaining). Clarification questions close 3pm on Thursday 22 October 2026.
Lot 5 at a glance
- Framework
- RM6399 Consultancy and Professional Services
- Buyer
- Government Commercial Agency
- Submissions close
- 3pm on Monday 9 November 2026
- Clarifications close
- 3pm on Thursday 22 October 2026
- Estimated lot value
- £200 million excluding VAT
- Award criteria
- Quality 90%, price 10%
- Call-off cap
- None stated in the notice
- Term
- 24 June 2027 to 23 June 2031 (estimated), four years
- Suppliers
- Maximum 500 across all ten lots
- Portal
- CCS/GCA BravoSolution (Jaggaer)
- Scope cues from the notice
- Human resources management consultancy, workforce strategy, organisational design, reward and job evaluation, employee relations, culture and engagement, learning and development strategy, and the people side of restructuring.
How Lot 5 is scored
Award criteria as published on Find a Tender notice 2026/S 000-087183. Confirm the question set and sub-weightings in the ITT on the portal.
Quality 90 percent, price 10 percent. HR consultancy in the public sector is bought when something has gone wrong or is about to change, so the evidence that scores is about difficult situations handled well: restructures, equal pay, industrial relations, culture reviews and workforce transformation with measurable outcomes.
Who should bid this lot
HR consultancies, organisational design and workforce planning specialists, reward and job evaluation firms, employee relations advisers and occupational psychology practices. Recruitment agencies should note that this is consultancy, not supply of staff, which sits on RM6397 and the other people frameworks.
The notice flags every RM6399 lot as particularly suitable for SMEs and VCSEs, and caps the framework at 500 suppliers in total. The general rule is to bid the lots you can evidence rather than the lots you would like to hold. Evaluators score depth of evidence per lot, and firms that bid two or three lots properly consistently outperform those that spread thin across six.
What actually scores
Restructures with the headcount, the consultation outcome and the employment tribunal exposure stated. Job evaluation and reward projects with the pay bill effect and the equal pay risk addressed. Workforce planning that changed vacancy rates or agency spend. Named consultants with CIPD or occupational psychology credentials and the public sector organisations they have worked inside.
The mistake that loses marks on this lot
Writing about HR frameworks and models rather than about workforces. Evaluators on this lot are usually HR directors who have seen every model. They are reading for whether you have handled a 2,000 person restructure in a unionised environment and what happened, and a page on your methodology does not tell them.
Lot 5 questions
Is temporary staffing or recruitment in scope of Lot 5?
No. Lot 5 is HR consultancy. Supply of temporary and permanent staff to the public sector runs through other frameworks, including RM6397 for the NHS. A recruitment firm with a consultancy practice can bid Lot 5 for that practice, but the evidence has to be consultancy evidence.
What kinds of HR work does the public sector buy through this route?
Organisational design and restructuring, workforce planning, reward and job evaluation, equal pay, employee relations and industrial relations support, culture and engagement reviews, HR function transformation and the people workstream of wider change programmes. The full scope is in the Framework Schedule 1 specification on the portal.
Does a small HR consultancy stand a chance on Lot 5?
Yes. The lot is flagged as particularly suitable for SMEs and the score is 90 percent quality. A specialist with deep evidence in one area, such as job evaluation in local government, competes well against a generalist that covers everything thinly.
Lot values, weightings and the timetable were taken from Find a Tender notice 2026/S 000-087183 and last reviewed on 6 October 2026. The ITT on the CCS/GCA BravoSolution (Jaggaer) portal is the only authority on the questions, the word counts and the conditions of participation, so confirm them there before you plan.
Bidding RM6399 Lot 5?
Submissions close 3pm on Monday 9 November 2026. Tell us which lots you are considering and what evidence you hold, and a director will come back the same working day with a straight view on whether the bid is winnable and what it would take.