S4S Oaks Schools Cluster - Learners' Trust - Tender for Catering Services

The successful supplier will be required to provide catering services for Learners' Trust at 18 locations (see the Learners' Trust website: www.learnerstrust.org).

Services 4 Schools (S4S) and Oaks Consultancy have been commissioned by Learners' Trust to coordinate this project to ensure Best Value Principles are achieved. The Litmus Partnership are working in partnership with S4S and Oaks Consultancy to manage the tender process and to assist with protocols that need to be in place throughout the tender management process.

The catering services provision at all 18 schools has not been market tested in recent years and to ensure best value principles are applied Learners' Trust has made a decision to tender the catering services.

Learners' Trust may grow further, with a number of additional schools becoming part of the Trust during this contract period. The provision of catering services at these schools if they have joined the Trust, or ended their current catering contract, will fall under the scope of this contract. The successful supplier will be expected to provide this service at these additional schools using the same costing model applied to the successful tender submission. The duration of contract for these schools will not be increased and they will join the contract for the remaining contract period that exists at the point of entry into the contract.

Not all the schools have their own kitchen facilities, as detailed below, and it is expected that the successful Supplier will have the experience and ability to offer this type of delivered meal service.

Current pupil roll numbers across all 18 sites is circa 3690.

Estimated annual turnover value based on the current Universal Free School meal allowance across all 18 locations is circa 1 000 000,00 GBP (1 million pounds) per annum including Universal Free School Meals, Free School Meals and cash sales. Current uptake levels vary across all sites and the Trust firmly believes that with improved choice and quality there is a real opportunity to increase levels of uptake.

For the avoidance of doubt TUPE Regulations including pension rights will apply to this contract where applicable.

The successful supplier will be expected to deliver a concise and detailed method of management reporting at the end of each month, thus updating the client on the consolidated contract performance. It is imperative that an open book policy is offered to ensure that each school has total clarity on financial performance.

The fixed price contract will commence on 1.8.2020 for an initial period of 3 years, ending on 31.7.2023, with the opportunity to extend for a further period of 2 years at the discretion of the LEARNERs' Trust's governing body. Where improvements to financial surpluses are generated the supplier shall share these on an agreed percentage return.

Further information is provided in the SQ Document.

Additional information: Interest in the selection process should be expressed via email only to [email protected] clearly stating within this email which contract / notice you are referring to. Please also provide, as a minimum, a contact name, full company postal address and telephone number.

The Selection Questionnaire and associated documents can be obtained at: https://litmuspartnership.co.uk/sq/learners-trust/

The closing date for receipt of the Selection Questionnaire is 27.12.2019 (12:00). Suppliers are required to ensure that documents are obtained and returned to The Litmus Partnership Limited, by email to [email protected] by the above closing date and time.

Documents in respect of economic / financial standing (where indicated in the Selection Questionnaire) shall be returned to The Litmus Partnership Limited, by email to [email protected] by the above closing date and time.

It will be the Supplier's responsibility to obtain any necessary documents in order to submit a response by the closing date and time.

The contracting authority reserves the right not to award any or part of the contract which is the subject of this Contract Notice and reserves the right to terminate the procurement process at any time.

The contracting authority will not be liable for any costs incurred by those expressing an interest in tendering for this contract opportunity.

The contracting authority will consider variant bids, evaluating them (so far as the variant or the evaluation of the variant is in the opinion of the contracting authority practicable) on the same basis as a conforming bid, but shall not be obliged to accept any such bid in preference to a conforming bid even if the variant bid scores more highly. No variant will be considered unless the bidder simultaneously submits a conforming bid.