With September upon us, and the dawn of a new academic year, we’re looking at what schools and Trusts can do operationally to become more efficient.
Two key school budget spends tend to fall under ‘catering’ or ‘Facilities Management’ (FM). Whether this spend is on an in-house or contracted catering/FM provision, let’s take a look at what schools can do to drive cost-savings in these two areas.
Improved efficiency and value for money across your FM spend
- Explore and audit all key assets of your school in order to unearth often hidden cost-saving opportunities. ‘Assets’ are everything from the boiler room and heating system to the catering equipment and fire alarm system. Check their condition, age, look for any issues with how they are working and catch it early to avoid the need for any call-outs or equipment breakdowns (which can be costly), and map out any necessary upgrades and budgets.
- If you don’t have the expertise in-house to do this, then outsource to a Facilities Management consultant, who can complete the audit and devise a follow-up strategy which will lay bare the inefficiencies with new clarity, enabling you to make future decisions for better budget spending.
- Use the audit to determine which services would be better value in-house, and which would be better value outsourced. Some services, such as catering or cleaning, could help relieve a burden.
Improved efficiency and value for money across your catering spend
- 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 the coming weeks around the Procurement Act changes. Sign Up Here
The Litmus team