Background
The catering services at Maidstone Grammar School were considered ‘fit for purpose’ but the contract had been in place for some years and the school was keen to test the market to ensure they were achieving best value from their catering services. The main objective was to find a high quality solution that was tailored to their student population. The school was interested in moving their already ‘good’ solution – to a ‘great’ solution.
Brief
The objectives of Litmus’ engagement were to:
- Manage the entire tender process in line with OJEU procedures;
- Understand the current catering solution at each school and assess this against the actual requirement, going forwards, focussing on highlighting areas for improvement;
- Developing a bespoke catering specification for the school, focussing on their target audience of a predominantly male student population;
- Provide a forum for raising issues and facilitate problem solving;
- Act as a consultative body for Head teachers and other stakeholders;
- Ensure best value was achieved; and
- After the tender provide ongoing dedicated monitoring of the contracted service to ensure compliance with the contract.
Approach
Rachel O’Grady, the Litmus Partnership, said: “We started by meeting with the School and understanding their student’s needs. From here, we created a tender which highlighted these needs and ensured a higher quality service would be put in place.
“Following an OJEU-compliant selection process we identified suitable bidders, and once responses to the tender were in, we went over a detailed financial evaluation of each one via our LTMS electronic portal – identifying anomalies and errors and providing a concise ‘user friendly’ like for like comparison of the bids. All shortlisted bidders were invited to present, which gave the opportunity to drill down on the detail of their submissions.”
Outcomes
The catering contract was successfully awarded in 2018 providing a more varied and bespoke offer for the boys, with a dedicated management team delivering stronger more effective guidance to the incumbent staff ensuring a consistent high quality service.
