Connecting Bristol, the City Council's digital partnership, want to support the development of an independent and self-supporting Bristol ICT Refurbishment and Reuse Scheme which is able to operate citywide and will act as a framework for distributing our redundant ICT equipment efficiently to individuals and organisations where it will have the most positive social impacts. This is likely to include older people, low income families, carers, social housing tenants, disabled people, care leavers and poorly resourced community and voluntary sector organisations. In addition to refurbishing/distributing the equipment, we would also like the scheme to include programmes to tackle digital/social exclusion (e.g. training, work experience opportunities etc) and to provide appropriate connectivity advice to enable the recipients to be connected to the Internet at an affordable price. We also anticipate that there will be interest from other public sectors bodies/businesses in providing ICT equipment to the scheme.

We are looking for an organisation who are willing to run this scheme and are holding a Providers Day for interested organisations. The Providers Day gives you the chance to find out more details, ask questions, provide input into the final specification which will be put out to tender following the event and find out more about Bristol City Council procurement processes. We will circulate a document outlining the outcomes we would like to achieve from the scheme in advance of the event and what we can offer.

Please note we will be offering our redundant ICT equipment, support to make links with organisations who can help deliver digital/social exclusion programmes and the connectivity elements of the scheme and contacts in other organisations who may be interested in donating equipment. It is not our intention to provide long term funding to run the scheme, which will need to be self-sustaining after the first year of operation.  We will identify what level of funding and in-kind support is available following discussions at the Providers Day. It is our ambition to have a scheme agreed by September 2010 and we will be happy to accept proposals from consortia or from individual organisations.