GDJ Consultancy Ltd Gareth Jones –Director Telephone: Jan Hoskins- Procurement Manager Telephone: Ext

About GDJ Consultancy Ltd Our consultants have extensive working knowledge of Public sector procurement processes and have worked with a number of central government agencies including Department for Education, NHS Trusts, Children’s Food Trust, Local Authorities, Schools and Academies. Recent projects have included: Assisting and advising on the development of a Collaborative Procurement Portal for OGC Advising on all areas of Sustainable procurement for various DEFRA working groups. Designed and implemented the Catering Services Framework Portal for ESPO. Drafting successful procurement strategies to deliver improved performance and deliver cash releasing savings. Running successful procurements for various school catering services contracts. Working Practices At GDJ Consultancy we believe in the values of sustainability and advocate the use of e business where possible, however we also know the importance of the face to face meeting as required. Communication methods are determined on a project by project basis and are agreed with the client.

We have recently completed the catering tenders for Rotherhithe and Southwark Park Primary schools. What did we do? created a clear timetable and all tender documentation We visited the school to discuss the process and requirements advised on the specification to ensure it contained all the required information managed the tender process and all communication with the suppliers award contract Both schools now have fully compliant contracts.This is important as neither school can be subject to a challenge from any supplier, this however is not the case if you have not chosen the correct route in which to engage a provider for your catering or indeed if the current contract has continued to run after the initial contract term …often referred to as a ‘rolling contract’, these could be successfully challenged and the school or authority can be taken to court and fined thousands of pounds for breaching competition rules. ‘Ignorance is no defence in law.’

Current Requirement Many schools in the Borough have no compliant contractual agreement in place. Southwark Council have passed the nus onto schools to ensure that they have satisfactory contracts in place with third party suppliers, who had previously been managed on schools behalf by Southwark Council. School are now operating at risk if they do not review the contracts they have in place with a view to ensuring they have complaint procurement processes and contracts are recorded and managed. Options Do nothing to address the issue. This carries significant risk as they will be in breach of The Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which clearly sets out the rules and regulations ALL Public sector organisations must adhere too. One of the key changes in the 2015 regulations, is the removal of Part B services which was often used to avoid the need to tender large services contracts.The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 Utilising one of the accessible Catering services frameworks. There are a number of accessible Catering Services Frameworks, but many require the payment of an access fee either directly as a fee payable by the user, or indirectly by a rebate paid by the supplier to the framework owner. Examples include ESPO 704 Catering services framework, London Procurement Partnership Soft Facilities Management. Collaborative procurement with other schools within the Borough. By working collaboratively you will be fully in control of the process and can ensure that the specification and subsequent contract will fully meet the expectations of all parties. And will ensure that there is no risk to challenge for the schools who participate.

What would collaboration look like? 2 or more schools agree that they would like to participate in a collaborative procurement exercise. We would facilitate a site audit for each school with the Children’s Food Trust to assess the current provision of catering including observing a luchtime service, meeting with both staff and pupils. Help the schools draft a specification which meets the Nutritional Guidance as well as any specific dietary requirements on each site. Suggest potential improvements to the service which could be included as part of tender, such as capital investment in new equipment etc. Under the current EU regulations you are required to publish all contracts over the threshold value (£172,14) with OJEU(Official Journal Of the European Union), and abide by the EU procurement regulations The minimum time frame allowed for this publication requires you to make available the documents for download from an electronic portal for 35 days. GDJ Consultancy has an EU compliant portal which enables us to publish simultaneously to both OJEU and Contracts Finder and to handle all the electronic transactions for the duration of the tender process as well as any subsequent mini comps. The portal is accessible via the internet at all times.

Once we have received responses from all the suppliers, the response would be evaluated online via our portal to ensure that all the responses are appropriately scored and that any amendments or moderation is accurately recorded. Our research has shown that the optimal number of schools participating in a tender is between 5 and 10, if we get more schools we will break the tender up into logical clusters. By using a lot structure we will attract the greatest engagement from both local, regional and national suppliers, which means that the schools will achieve Value for Money.

Interested in Collaboration please add your details to the list before you leave today we will contact you to discuss further