As the academic year closes, we provide our thoughts on what schools and Trusts should consider in their catering planning in the next academic year
With the end of another academic year in sight, we’re taking a look at what schools and Trusts can do operationally to become more efficient.
One key, often large school budget, is for catering. Whether this spend is on an in-house or contracted catering provision, let’s take a look at what schools can do to drive cost-savings in this area.
6 ways you can improve efficiency/value for money across your catering spend in the new academic year
If the catering is outsourced, savings are likely to be made either through renegotiation following a best value benchmarking review or by putting your contract out to tender.
Cost-plus contracts should not provide a blank cheque to operators. There are several ways of guaranteeing or capping costs and incentivising the contractor to not overspend (which many contracts perversely encourage), but to meet or exceed the budget without compromising on service standards.
Taking catering services in-house can be a way to reduce costs, but should only be done following a robust options appraisal. Short-term savings can be quickly eroded without proper management systems, procurement expertise and staff development
If the catering services are already in-house, then it’s advisable to get an independent review of how efficiently you’re operating against best-in-class. It can be easy to become complacent when the catering is in-house and also to lose sight of innovations within the wider sector, fresh ideas and ensuring the service evolves in line with expectations.
There are also tech-driven systems, specifically designed to support schools with their in-house foodservice and can reduce the overall food procurement costs by up to 20%. Our kitchen management and food procurement system, Litmus Edge, does just this and is unlike anything else on the market. It not only offers the most innovative kitchen management, menu and food safety/allergen tools on the market, but it also gives schools the flexibility to either access our renowned network of specialist suppliers – offering highly competitive pricing, quality ingredients and exceptional service – or manage their own existing supplier arrangements, all within one platform.
Schools also need to factor in the Procurement Act 2023 which is due to come into force in October, which will have a significant impact on those working in public procurement. The main outcomes from the proposed Procurement Bill are that there will be just two categories of competitive procedures (as opposed to the current five): Open Procedure and Competitive Flexible Procedure. There is also a proposed shift in the way tenders should be assessed and awarded. The Bill requires tenders are awarded to the ‘most advantageous tender’ and contracting authorities can take a view on what best value means to them such as environmental, social value or qualitative.
Furthermore, contracts valued over £5million must be formally performance assessed every 12 months through at least three KPIs.
These are by no means the only changes; as you can imagine, the introduction of a new Bill brings new ways of working, complications and it’s critical that public sector organisations ensure they meet the new standards and rules when they come into play.
We will be running a FREE webinar in October around the Procurement Act changes. This is part 2 of 2 in a series of Procurement Act changes webinars. To sign up please contact us here and/or if you wish watch part 1 of this webinar series on demand, please feel free to get in touch and we can send you the link to view this.
The Litmus team