North Hertfordshire College
Background
North Hertfordshire College (NHC) is a medium sized further education college enrolling around 15,000 learners a year. The College is based across eight main centres in Hitchin, Stevenage and Letchworth Garden City.
In May 2011, Wendy Sutherland was engaged to support the procurement process for catering services. The College were impressed by the way in which the tender was conducted and its results, therefore in January 2013 assistance was requested with a tender for cleaning across the NHC estate along with a mini competition process for catering in June 2015.
The Scope of the Contract
Initially catering services were required across three of the sites within NHC, which created a turnover of £½ million. Refectory services are required to feed a site population of up to 1,400 staff and students in Hitchin, with a further 3,300 in two locations in Stevenage. Hospitality services were provided for Executives and internal meetings. In 2015, an additional facility was included within the mini competition process in Letchworth for 185 students and staff.
The cleaning contract included all eight sites within NHC and the turnover was in the region of £400,000. The service profile for the cleaning contractor was for a limited amount of support to be provided during the day and the bulk of the work being carried out at night.
The Consultancy Services Provided
The support provided on each occasion varied to some degree however a brief summary for each tender or mini competition has been outlined on the following pages.
Catering Tender 2011
Cleaning Tender 2013
NHC did not want a standard ITT document to be used therefore Tenderers were asked to suggest what the service specification should be. This was based on the size and usage of each of the buildings and produced some interesting results. This signalled to the Tenderers that a fresh, innovative approach was needed to reflect the changes within NHC.
Catering Mini Competition 2015
NHC had joined a purchasing consortium in 2014 and therefore were not required to undertake a full tender process. A mini competition process was initiated based on the appropriate geographical Lot assigned to the College.
The consultancy services provided for this process were:
- Communication with Suppliers to advise of process and forward invitations to participate.
- Preparation and issue of Mini Competition documents
- Support and management of Suppliers meetings
- Evaluation of bids
- Summary document of the Mini Competition
