Hertfordshire Constabulary

Hertfordshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Hertfordshire in England. Its headquarters is in Welwyn Garden City.

The Constabulary wanted to work with a consultancy to help them tender their catering and cleaning services, to ensure the best possible quality was being delivered and the best possible value was being achieved.

The objective of Litmus’ engagement was to:

• To work with the in-house procurement team by providing technical and operational support during the catering tender whilst meeting with OJEU procedures;
• To discuss the viability of services at each station and meet with users and stakeholders;
• Provide a forum for raising issues and facilitate problem solving;
• Act as a consultative body and attend key user group discussion meetings;
• Ensure best value was achieved; and
• After the tender, provide ongoing dedicated monitoring of the contracted service to ensure compliance with the contract.

Peter Barber, the Litmus Partnership, said: “In 2003 Litmus was contracted by the Constabulary to provide a review of all services at each site. The Litmus Partnership provided the Constabulary with comprehensive specifications to assist with the preparation of the OJEU tender documentation. The catering services were tendered in 2003, 2006 and 2011; following the success of the catering tender process Litmus was contracted to support the tender for the Constabulary cleaning services contract in 2007.

“We executed a detailed, financial evaluation of all submissions– identifying anomalies and errors and providing a concise ‘user friendly’ like-for-like comparison of the bids. We then hosted presentations with the shortlisted contractors in conjunction with the Constabulary’s senior management team.”

The catering contract has been successfully tendered, awarded and monitored on three occasions. During this period, the standard and quality of service rose whilst witnessing a satisfactory decline in the annual running costs.