Lighthouse Schools Partnership — tender for catering services.

The successful tenderer will be required to provide catering services at Lighthouse Schools Partnership.

The successful tenderer will be required to provide all catering services within the Trust, which also includes all hospitality and free issue requirements.

The Lighthouse Schools Partnership is a recently established Multi Academy Trust (MAT) which includes currently the following properties where the successful contractor will be required to deliver a service and meet the requirements of the specification from the contract commencement. The Schools which currently form the Trust are:

— High Down Schools (both Junior and Infant Schools); — St Mary's CEVA Primary School; — St Peters C of E primary School; — Portishead Primary School.

The contract being tendered is for three years in duration from 1.4.2017 until 31.3.2020, with the option to extend for a further term and will be guaranteed performance in nature.

The tender project is seeking to appoint a contractor whose initiative and innovation will be welcomed for the provision of all catering services within the Trust. The high quality service levels proposed, should maintain excellent standards throughout, resulting in a new food service offer with consistent standards of food operations across all Schools.

These new standards of operation should meet the needs of the pupils moving forwards into this contract term. The current range of foods needs to be expanded along with the service provision. Regular customer engagement will be required to ensure this is the case moving into the contract term.

The contract currently operates on guaranteed cost per year with all free school meals and hospitality being charged based on consumption and at net food cost.

The approximate cost of the contract per annum is 337 559 GBP plus VAT.

The Multi Academy Trust is expected to grow in the number of schools becoming part of the trust during this contract period, and the provision of catering services within these schools when they have joined the MAT will fall under the scope of this contract. The successful contractor will be expected to provide this service within these additional schools using the same costing model, ratios etc. that they applied to their successful tender submission for the Lighthouse Schools Partnership at the point of 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 MAT.

Please note: further schools may be added to the contract during the tender process and during the life of the contract as detailed above.

Additional information: Interest in the pre-qualification 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 pre-qualification questionnaire and associated documents can be obtained at: http://www.litmuspartnership.co.uk/project/lighthouse_schools_partnership_catering_services

The closing date for receipt of the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire is 9.9.2016 (12:00). Tenderers 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 Pre-Qualification 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 Tenderer'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 OJEU 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.