Queensbridge School and Fox Hollies School - Catering Services

The successful tenderer will be required to provide catering services at Queensbridge School and Fox Hollies School. Both schools are located on the same site.

Both are mixed schools; Queensbridge School educates pupils in the 11-16 range and currently has 740 pupils on roll, rising to 850 by September 2018, whilst Fox Hollies educates pupils in the 11-19 range has approximately 90 pupils on roll.

The contract covers the scope for the provision of all catering and vending services within both schools, which also includes all hospitality and free issue requirements. All pupils use the one restaurant located within Queensbridge School.

The duration of the contract being offered is three years commencing on 1 April 2016 and concluding on 31 March 2019, with the option to extend for a further period of three years.

The contract being offered within this tender will be based on a guaranteed performance basis with all fee issue requirements and hospitality being recharged on consumption at “net” food cost only.

The current contract cost is circa £130,000.00 per annum.

Both schools are sited on the Moseley / Edgbaston border within Birmingham.

It is expected that the contract will have a reduction in subsidy on a year on year basis based on improved uptake among the pupils from both schools and your proposals for customer engagement will be required within the tender submission.

The School are looking for the successful tenderer to provide inward capital investment to refresh and rejuvenate the catering facilities thus improving on the current provision and ensure that the amount of time spent queuing by pupils is reduced within all break periods. This should include but not be limited to looking at the provision of new service areas within the school.

The quality of food provision will be critical and indeed your organisation must be flexible enough to source bakery, meat, fruit and vegetables and dairy products through local suppliers based no more than 20 miles from the School. It is expected that menus will feature and utilise products in season when available.

As detailed customer engagement will be fundamental to the continuous improvement in the service provision and within your tender response you methodology to this will need to be detailed along with examples of where this has been undertaken within similar contracts recently.

The successful contractor should have similar operations within the local area thus ensuring that the Operational Management Team responsible for the contract are available for regular unplanned visits and support for the contract, and that coverage for any planned or unplanned leave from within the establishment staffing structure can be easily provided.

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/queensbridge_school_and_fox_hollies_school

The closing date for receipt of the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire is 20.11.2015 (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.