Winning organisational work
UK Government · 8 September 2020 · Free to read
How to bid for government contracts as a consortium
Cabinet Office and Department for Education guidance on when organisations can bid together, what a lead supplier must be authorised to do, and how consortia are treated in a tender.
Many coaching contracts are larger than one independent coach can sensibly deliver. This guidance is useful because it treats a consortium as a normal bidding structure: two or more suppliers coming together during a procurement.
It is older than the Procurement Act collection, and it was published by Cabinet Office and the Department for Education. We still picked it because it is official, specific, and still live. The 2025 supplier collection also now includes a Find a Tender video on setting up consortia.
The page is clear that you do not need a particular legal form merely to submit a bid, though a single contracting entity may be required if you win.
If a contract asks for national coverage, multiple methods, or a volume of coaching days you cannot deliver alone, the alternative to walking away may be a lead-and-partners arrangement.
That only works if the relationships, roles and risk are agreed before the deadline. The guidance expects written authority for a lead supplier to submit on everyone else’s behalf.
It is not a recommendation to form a consortium for its own sake. It is a reminder that ‘too big for me’ and ‘impossible’ are not always the same thing.
This is an external source. Four Corners Coaching did not produce the original report.
Winning organisational work · Free to read
UK Government Commercial Function · November 2024, updated August 2025
Official guidance on the Procurement Act 2023 regime, Find a Tender, and how smaller suppliers are expected to register and bid for public-sector work.
Why we picked it. It is the government’s own starting point for suppliers, including small businesses, under the current procurement rules.
Grow your coaching business · Registration required
6sense · November 2025
6sense’s global buyer study finds that most B2B buying groups rank preferred suppliers before they speak to anyone, and that the early favourite still usually wins.
Why we picked it. It is one of the clearer explanations of why waiting for a tender or a warm referral can be too late.