Make the Invisible Visible: Why Your Learning Disability Bid Might Be Too Assumed

💬 “We didn’t score well — but we thought we answered the question.”

It’s a common frustration in learning disability tendering. And often, the problem isn’t what you wrote — it’s what you assumed.

In many learning disability bids, providers assume the commissioner already knows the basics:

• That people have complex needs
• That person-centred support is best
• That behaviour is communication

But here’s the truth: tenders reward explanation, not assumption. You have to say the obvious — and then prove it matters. For example:

• Explain why you avoid assumptions and how that reduces restrictive practice
• Describe how your PBS approach is shaped by family insight and lived experience
• Prove your team reflect on ‘why this, why now?’ — not just respond to the surface behaviour

What feels ‘basic’ to you may be what wins you the bid. In learning disability services, your specialist insight needs to be explicit — not implied.

Make the invisible visible. Because commissioners aren’t inside your service — they only know what you put on the page.