The Law Society is seeking bids from interested organisations to develop and administer a scheme to assess the knowledge and skills of immigration and asylum advisers.

Advisers who work in a variety of different environments, including the not-for-profit sector, and who have a range of qualifications will need to be assessed to meet the new requirements of the Legal Services Commission.

From I April 2005 only accredited advisers will be permitted to provide publicly funded immigration and asylum advice.

Accordingly, the Society invites bids from organisations with expertise of assessment and an infrastructure to manage, in the first year, assessments of up to 4,000 candidates.

The assessments will need to be held across England and Wales and the scheme must be open from April 2004.

A scoping document will be available from 5 January 2004 from maxine.warr@lawsociety.org.uk (interest must be registered by 16 January, after which the formal documentation will be sent to all respondents).

Bids must be received by the Law Society by 20 February 2004.