For further education colleges
A materials licence, not a subcontracting arrangement.
Your tutors deliver it. That sentence is the most important one on this page, and the rest of it explains why.
The problem this addresses
ESOL learners arrive through the year, at different levels, from different countries, with different reasons for being here. Funded provision covers the classroom. It does not cover the part where somebody cannot work out what a shop assistant meant.
Meanwhile the staff those learners meet first are often not ESOL staff at all. Reception, learner services, safeguarding, estates. They are communicating daily with people whose English is at A1, and almost none of them have had any training in how to do it.
Both of those gaps are what these materials and this standard are for.
What RISEA supplies
- Licensed learning materials. A fifteen-chapter Food and Drink series at CEFR A1–B1, covering airports, supermarkets, takeaways, delivery, shopping and budgeting. Each chapter comes with the worksheets, scripts and quick reference cards a tutor needs to use it without preparation.
- A written standard for how staff communicate with newcomers and ESOL learners, with a self-assessment your organisation completes against twenty indicators.
- A staff training module your own internal lead can run, so the standard is something your people are equipped to meet rather than something they are measured against.
Chapter 1 is free to read in full, without a form, so you can judge the material rather than a description of it.
The point that decides how long this takes
This is not delivery subcontracting, and the wording matters.
DfE subcontracting funding rules define delivery subcontracting as delivery to a learner's programme of learning by a separate legal entity. Treating a supplier that way triggers a heavy regime. It requires:
- a documented rationale;
- governance and accounting officer sign-off before each funding year;
- publication by 31 October;
- financial health and credit rating assessment;
- a valid UKPRN;
- twice-yearly declarations;
- an external auditor's report once aggregate subcontracting reaches £100,000.
The same rules exclude relationships with third parties providing services such as marketing. RISEA supplies licensed materials and a standard. Your staff do the teaching, in your classrooms, on your programmes, to your learners. Nothing here is delivery to a learner's programme of learning by a separate legal entity, so none of that regime applies.
Source: DfE subcontracting funding rules for post-16 education and training.
The procurement position
The most common reason a college does not proceed is the assumption that buying will be painful. For a contract of this size it is not, and here is why.
Education and training services fall under the light touch regime, where the threshold from 1 January 2026 is £663,540 including VAT. Below-threshold advertising duties under section 87 of the Procurement Act 2023 begin at £30,000.
Certification is £500, £1,500 or £3,000 a year. All three sit well below both figures. A college can buy on a quote.
One more thing worth knowing, because it is often assumed the other way round. Section 22(3)(b) of the Procurement Act means a contracting authority may not require insurance to be in place before the contract is awarded. RISEA does not currently hold professional indemnity cover, and says so plainly on the buyer page. It is not a barrier to award.
How to proceed
- Read Chapter 1 and decide whether the material is any good.
- Open the buyer information page. It carries the legal and VAT position, the data processing agreement, the accessibility statement and the social value commitments — everything your finance team will ask for.
- Email contact@riseainternational.co.uk with the tier you want and the purchase order details. You will get a written quotation the same week.