ANNEX 7 COMMERCIALLY SENSITIVE INFORMATION

This table should be used to record the sections of the bid which contain commercially sensitive information.

CPA Number : 18 CPA Name (Please state in full) : Yorkshire and The Humber North East Yorkshire and The Humber Question number Commercially Sensitive Information

In accordance with Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we believe that the information provided within this tender submission constitutes a trade secret and that its disclosure would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Newcastle College Group (NCG) and its associated companies and cause substantial harm to those companies. Since the information is contained within a tender submission it is obviously used for the purposes of trade. The information is commercially sensitive because it describes the unique offer of NCG and its associated companies: there is a detailed description of features of the offer which differentiate the approach from that offered by rivals. The features of the offer are based on considerable skill, effort and innovation on the part of NCG and its associated companies. The information as collated and presented in the tender is not known beyond a narrow circle. Releasing the information would enable rivals to produce similar tender documents in future without necessarily a similar investment of skill, effort and innovation; this would be advantageous to rivals in tendering processes in the future especially relating to Employment Related Support Services Framework competitions and other employability and skills related services in the UK. We are therefore strongly opposed to the disclosure of the information contained within this Work Programme tender. Furthermore, we believe the public interest is served by: maintaining the opportunity for providers to be open and frank about the details of their approach when making tender submissions decisions to award contracts based on the merit of offers based on the investment of skill, effort and innovation rather than the opportunity to emulate previously successful tender documents maintaining the job security of employees in organisations whose service to the public is based on the investment of skill, effort and innovation