Seeking expressions of interest for the provision of administrative and examination services for the joint insolvency examination board.
The Joint Insolvency Examination Board (the “Board” and “JIEB”) is responsible, at the request of the bodies recognised by the Secretary of State as Recognised Professional Bodies (“RPBs”) in terms of section 391 of the Insolvency Act, 1986 (the “Act”) for the setting of examinations on insolvency. A pass in the examinations is required by the RPBs for the purpose of considering whether or not to grant an individual authorisation in terms of section 390A of the Act.
The Board is proposing to invite interested parties to tender for the provision of the administration of the Board and the examinations set by the Board (the “Lot”) from 1st March 2027.
In anticipation of this process, the Board has agreed upon the services to be provided as part of the Lot. Parties are invited to express an interest confirming that they can fulfil all of the following criteria (the “Core Requirements”):
- Provision of all statutory Company Secretarial and accounting functions for JIEB and liaising with external auditors
- Maintenance of the public-facing aspects of the JIEB website as required (domain name and technical maintenance being provided by the Board’s own third-party contractors)
- Provision of suitable meeting rooms and online or hybrid meeting arrangements for all JIEB meetings in London or any other location reasonably requested by JIEB (Board, examination team, administration, Graduation, etc.)
- Provision of secure infrastructure for preparing all the examination documentation
- Provision of dedicated (but not exclusive) personnel with expertise in professional examinations for candidate interface
- Provision of suitable examination centres; geographically covering Great Britain (but currently not Northern Ireland) and to avoid lengthy candidate travel, where possible
- Administering requests made by any candidate for, and the provision of, reasonable adjustments in terms of both the Board’s policies and all legal requirements, from time-to-time
- Provision of a suitable online platform for candidates sitting the examination at the examination centres, which must include:
- spreadsheet and word processing facilities for the candidates in the one interface
- online access to completed scripts with functionality allowing post-completion annotations for marking and moderating the scripts
- functionality allowing for exporting the marks and comments to a single dataset for analysis and reporting
- Collating the examination results and advising candidates with appropriate cross-checking and verification
- Securely retaining all examination documentation for an agreed period
- Providing online candidate registration, payment and management via a JIEB branded portal with all necessary and appropriate security and data processing compliance
- Ensuring that all candidate and relevant third-party interaction is JIEB branded
- Utilising JIEB e-mail addresses in all external contacts
If a party wishes to express an interest in tendering for the Core Requirements, their expression of interest must include details of the software package that will be provided for the sitting, marking and moderating of the examination scripts and the Board reserves the right to have the software tested for compliance with the Core Requirements before inviting a formal tender from the relevant party.
Expressions of interest should be addressed to Stephen Allinson, Chair of the Joint Insolvency Examination Board, at [email protected].
Closing date: 4pm on 30th January 2026.
On receipt of expressions of interest in providing the full terms of the Lot, the Board shall consider those and as necessary move to the formal stage of a tender process and, if so, parties will be invited to tender for the Lot. Any tender by a party may, at their discretion, include the provision of any additional services to the Board but must include the Core Requirements.
