The Sentencing Council is inviting bids to conduct research to support a review of the methodology of our resource assessments, to support our statutory duty in this area.

Background

As part of our statutory duties, the Council is required to have regard to the resource implications of each guideline (s.127(1), (2), (3)). This is in the form of a resource assessment that considers the likely effect of that guideline on the resources required for the provision of prison places, probation provision and provision of youth justice services. These resource assessments are published alongside the draft and definitive guidelines and are produced using both quantitative and qualitative research to provide an estimate, where possible, of any resource impacts. Each guideline provides different challenges and, therefore, no two resource assessments are the same. 

The Council’s commitment to this area of work has recently been restated in our publication: Sentencing Council strategic objectives 2021-2026, which sets out our priorities and actions for the next five years. As part of this, the Council has committed to publishing work in this area and has an action to ‘consider whether enhancements can be made to the way in which we measure and interpret the impact of our guidelines and our approaches to resource assessments by undertaking a review of our current practice’. To this end, we are commissioning this work to support the review our current methodological approaches to resource assessments and to advise on how these might be enhanced in the future.

Timescales

We aim to start the work as soon as possible. It should be completed by the end of June 2022.

More information

Please see the specification of requirements for the work. Bids must be submitted by noon 17 February 2022. Pre-tender questions can be submitted by 10 February to Emma Marshall.