Arden Academy - Tender for Cleaning Services.

Arden Academy is situated in pleasant surroundings in Knowle, Solihull. It is an oversubscribed 11-18 High Performing Specialist Academy. At Arden, all pride themselves on doing the very best for every pupil, helping them achieve their full educational potential as they develop into happy, well-rounded young adults, of whom all can be very proud. In return for the School doing their best, they expect every pupil to match up to the high academic and personal standards that they set as a pre-requisite for being part of the Arden family. Arden is a place where a child can really flourish and all staff will do their very best to see them reach their maximum personal and academic potential.

The tender project is seeking to appoint a Supplier whose initiative and innovation will be welcomed for the provision of cleaning services and lettings management within the facilities for Arden Academy. The high quality service levels proposed, should maintain excellent standards throughout, resulting in a pleasant environment for both the pupils and staff.

The basis and rationale that the Client requires the successful Supplier to operate to at all times, is being able to provide a school that is fit for purpose and that the Supplier is proactive in the management of the contract, thus ensuring that all specifications are achieved and that the frequency of cleans is as detailed within the tender specification.

The contract being tendered is for three years in duration from 1.1.2018 until 31.12.2020 and will be fixed price in nature, with the Supplier invoicing the Client for one-twelfth of the annual cost on a monthly basis.

It should be noted that the successful Supplier will be expected to bring to the contract: innovation; new equipment; and cleaning methods, with BICSc standards being achieved as a minimum, thus ensuring that the highest levels of cleanliness are maintained in all areas at all times and also ensuring that the productivity of the cleaning operatives is enhanced moving forward into the new contract term.

At present 11 cleaning operatives (one of whom is an employee of Arden Academy) are employed to work an average of 257 hours per week, between the hours of 6:00 - 8:00 and 15:30 - 18:00, Monday to Friday, which includes a Contract Manager undertaking cleaning and non-cleaning duties, totalling 30 hours per week.

The value of the current contracts are circa 170 000 GBP + VAT which includes daily cleaning duties for 39 weeks of the year plus 4 weeks' flexible periodic cleaning, washroom services, bin collection twice per week and window cleaning once per annum.

(Further information is available 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: https://www.litmuspartnership.co.uk/project/arden_academy

The closing date for receipt of the Selection Questionnaire is 12.5.2017 (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.