Leisure and Culture Services - Stafford Borough Council

Early Market Engagement Exercise

Testing the market interest in managing and operating leisure, culture and heritage facilities in Stafford and Stone

Stafford Borough Council is considering contracting out the management and operation of its Leisure and Cultural facilities to an external partner and is seeking the views of interested parties by way of an early market engagement.

The Council currently directly operates eight facilities consisting of three sport and leisure centres, an athletics track, a theatre, and three heritage sites – including Stafford Castle. The facilities receive over three quarters of a million visits annually, and generate circa £3.5m of revenue.

The Council considers that there is significant potential for experienced and innovative leisure and cultural operator(s) to increase income and reduce operating costs in order to generate a substantial revenue saving to the Council, whilst retaining the provision and quality currently on offer.

A business opportunity prospectus provides more detail about the Council’s leisure and cultural facilities and its longer term strategic plans and priorities and is available upon request. The prospectus sets out the topics under which the Council wishes to engage with the market, to help inform it of the long term benefits of the alternative management and delivery of its Leisure and Cultural Services.

The topics include, but are not limited to the scope of services to be outsourced, the procurement route, preferred contract length, the allocation of major revenue, operating and property risks, the indicative potential savings to the Council, and the scope for increasing usage of the facilities.

Organisations that are interested in this opportunity should register their interest at [email protected], as soon as possible and by no later than Tuesday 31st May 2016.

The prospectus will be forwarded to those organisations that have registered an interest. A questionnaire will also be enclosed which we ask if interested parties could complete and return before the closing date listed within the prospectus.

The Council is issuing this notice for the purpose of pre-procurement market engagement under Regulation 40 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The notice is for information only and is not a call for competition under Regulations 26 (9) and 48 (5) – (7) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. Stafford Borough Council will use the comments and feedback from the early market engagement exercise to inform the final decision on how best to outsource the management of its Leisure and Cultural Services, and the detailed process for procuring any future external partner(S). The start of any formal procurement process for a future Leisure and Cultural Services Contract(s), for which a separate Contract Notice will be issued, would be expected to commence in August 2016.