John Ferneley College - Catering Services

The successful tenderer will be required to provide catering services at John Ferneley College.

Part of the Mowbray Education Trust, John Ferneley College is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form with academy status, located in Melton Mowbray in the English county of Leicestershire. The school is named after John Ferneley, a painter who lived in Melton Mowbray, and who is regarded as one of the great British equine artists. There are approximately 1100 pupils at the school and the current annual turnover is approximately £150,000.

A new school building was opened at the school site in April 2010, and an enrichment centre was opened in March 2012. Previously a community school administered by Leicestershire County Council, John Ferneley College converted to academy status in November 2011. However the school continues to coordinate with Leicestershire County Council for admissions.

The school specialises in Business and Enterprise, and has a dedicated Enterprise Learning Zone which offers specialist facilities for teaching Technology subjects (Food, Electronics and Design Technology), Business Studies and ICT.

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 for the students, teaching and support staff, 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.

The contract covers the scope for the provision of all catering services within the school, which also includes all hospitality and free issue requirements, which are to be recharged on consumption at “net” food cost only.

The duration of the contract being offered is three years commencing on 1 April 2016 and concluding on 31 March 2019 and will operate as a Guaranteed Performance Contract, with the successful Contractor offering the School a guaranteed return / cost per annum for the provision of catering services. Sovereignty of the cash tariff is to remain with John Ferneley College for the duration of this contract.

The School is looking for the successful tenderer to provide inward capital investment to refresh and rejuvenate the catering facilities thus improving on the current provision.

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

Additional information: The successful contractor should have similar operations within the local area thus ensuring that the Operational Management Team responsible for the contract is 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.

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/john_ferneley_college

The closing date for receipt of the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire is 27.11.2015 (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.