The Urswick School - Tender for Catering Services

The successful tenderer will be required to provide catering services at The Urswick School.

The tender project is seeking to appoint a Contractor whose initiative and innovation will be welcomed for the provision of service within the existing facilities, with a focus on exciting new food concepts to satisfy a wide range of pupil tastes and dietary requirements. The School would wish the successful contractor to review the current range of services offered and make recommendations accordingly.

Every student in Years 7 to 13 receives a free school lunch every weekday, whether they are entitled to Free School Meals or not. Each student is given a hot main meal or sandwich, salad and a dessert or drink.

The contract being tendered is for 3 years plus a possible further extension of 2 years from September 2016 and will operate as a Cost Plus Agreement, with the successful Contractor managing the variations in uptake to offer best value to the School.

The School has around 850 pupils on roll and approximately 140 teaching and support staff.

The School year is based on a calendar of 195 days. 5 days are to be used for staff professional development which means that School will be open to receive students for the legal minimum of 190 days.

The contract offered covers the scope for the provision of all catering services within the School, which currently includes morning break, lunch, all hospitality and free issue requirements. Free School meals and hospitality will be charged based on consumption and at net food cost.

Whilst the School prioritises value for money as a key objective of the competitive tender process, the Governing body is not obliged to accept the lowest price.

The 2015/16 budget sales figures are as follows:

Breakfast / morning break sales: 26 107 GBP;

Adult meals: 6 665 GBP;

Free school meals: 174 420 GBP;

Total: 207 192 GBP.

The School expects the successful contractor to enable the continued development of catering through the provision of an innovative, fully compliant, healthy food service, with fresh, seasonal, locally sourced ingredients being prepared on-site.

The School's objectives:

• To continue the standards of fresh food provision;

• To receive a consistently high quality catering provision;

• To generate an improved dining environment for all students;

• To receive proactive management support for the catering staff;

• To hold regular review meetings with the successful contractor;

• To use the catering services as an educational tool for choosing balanced meal choices;

• To achieve overall value for money.

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

The closing date for receipt of the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire is 22.4.2016 (12:00). Tenderers 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 Pre-Qualification 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 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.