Procurement: employee assistance programme service

Overview

The Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) provides support and guidance to the employees of our collaborative partners, to help them deal with personal and work-related problems.

The welfare services are provided to each collaborative partner on request. The service includes support mechanism for staff and a management reporting function for human resources (HR) managers.

Welfare requests will normally be managed via HR to the service provider.  

The support for employees will be in the form of:

• immediate crisis intervention
• home visit
• advice/information, including a website
• advocacy (facilitating meetings on behalf of individuals)

For the management reporting element, HR will make a request, the employee receives a welfare visit by the service provider, which will be followed up by a completed welfare report produced by the service provider.

What is in scope

The EAP service described in this schedule includes the following:

• telephone/virtual counselling services
• information services
• online information system
• advice for carers
• advice for management staff, for example, mental health, available via website
• face to face counselling sessions
• referral procedures

In addition to the provision of EAP services to employees, the service provider shall make available the EAP service in reduced capacity to immediate families of employees. Specific exclusions shall apply to services made available to immediate families.

What is out of scope

Occupational Health Services - see: occupational health and related services.

The EAP contract excludes:

• face-to-face counselling sessions for immediate families. (Note: the exemption does not prevent immediate families from participating in couple or family counselling where this is requested by the employee or attending counselling in support of the employee)
• legal and financial information for immediate families

Who can use this

The framework is accessible to the Scottish Ministers (including agencies), specifically the Scottish Prison Service, Scottish Non-Departmental Public Bodies, offices in the Scottish administration which are not ministerial offices, cross-border public authorities within the meaning of section 88(5) of the Scotland Act 1998, the Scotland Office, the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, special health boards, Advanced Procurement for Universities & Colleges (known as APUC in Scotland) and the affiliated Scottish Higher & Further Education (H&FE) sector, Forestry Commission, Scottish Futures Trust, Student Loans Company Ltd, the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses, Business Stream Ltd, any public body established by or under the Scotland Act 1998 or any Act of the Scottish Parliament, any association of or formed by one or more of the above, bodies financed wholly or mainly by one or more of the above, bodies subject to management supervision by one or more of the above and bodies more than half of the board of directors or members of which, or, in the case of a group of individuals, more than half of those individuals, being appointed by one or more of the above.

For further information please refer to Public Contracts Scotland.

Note: It is the responsibility of any Purchasing organisation wishing to use the framework agreement to satisfy itself that it is eligible to do so.

Entitlement can be established from the terms of the OJEU advert and guidance on this can be found in Annex A of our guidance on framework agreements.

If there is any doubt, legal advice should be sought.

Benefits

Benefits for public bodies using this framework include:

• collaborative partners can choose to utilise a ‘fixed price (all-inclusive) or ‘as used’ pricing model for EAP and welfare services
• budget certainty with all prices capped for the duration of the framework agreement four years
• retention of existing telephone numbers
• the service provider has agreed specific performance measures with performance against service measured and reported per purchaser by the service provider

Supplier details

Working on Wellbeing Ltd (T/A Optima Health)
Sarah Chare
Mobile: 07854 109070
Email: Sarah.Chare@optimahealth.co.uk

Further information

For further information please contact the named individual below.