Wellspring Academy Trust ~ Tender for Catering Services.

The Wellspring Academy network is a progressive and growing network of mostly primary schools and special or alternative academies located predominantly in the Barnsley, Leeds, Grimsby and Lincolnshire areas.

The requirement is initially to provide catering services to the Leeds and Barnsley cluster of schools with the contract commencing January 2018. Other schools may then be added to the contract as and when existing contracts come to an end or additional schools join the network within the contract term. Schools may choose not to opt in to the Trust wide contract and continue with their existing arrangement.

The existing provision is delivered through a mix of local authority, private contractor and in-house delivery models with new schools also opening with no current provision as identified further within this notice.

The Leeds and Barnsley networks consist of the following schools:

• Oakhill Primary Academy ~ Barnsley

• Oakwell Rise Academy ~ Barnsley

• The Forest Academy ~ Barnsley

• Greenacre School ~ Barnsley

• Springwell Learning Community ~ Barnsley

• Victoria Primary Academy ~ Leeds

• Ebor Gardens Primary Academy ~ Leeds

• Springwell Leeds Oakwood ~ Leeds

• Springwell Leeds East ~ Leeds (opening January 2018)

• Springwell Leeds South ~ Leeds (opening April 2018)

• Springwell Leeds North ~ Leeds (opening September 2018)

Numbers catered for on-site range from 12 to 268 with some sites have a cook on site and some a delivered service.

It should be noted that the schools have different term dates and provide facilities / catering during school holidays.

The contract will be for a period of up to 3 years for each school, starting from 1.1.2018 with an option to extend on an annual basis up to a maximum of 5 years.

The Trust currently has 15 academies across 42 sites and expects rapid growth over the next 2 years, resulting in around 25 to 30 academies within the Trust. If the catering provider exceeds expectations within this contract, the Trust would consider extending the contract to include other academies across the region.

Further information is provided in the procurement documents.

Additional information: Interest in the selection process should be expressed via email only to pqq@litmuspartnership.co.uk 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: http://www.litmuspartnership.co.uk/project/wellspring_academy_trust__catering_services

The closing date for receipt of the Selection Questionnaire is 18.8.2017 (12:00). Suppliers are required to ensure that documents are obtained and returned to The Litmus Partnership Limited, by email to pqq@litmuspartnership.co.uk 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 pqq@litmuspartnership.co.uk 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.