West Park School — Tender for Catering Services.

The successful tenderer will be required to provide catering and hospitality services at West Park School.

‘Outstanding schools have a burning desire to get the best possible deal for children in every respect. They are places where the culture of achievement runs deep. Through sheer hard work and determination West Park has become the school it has always wanted to be. Standards at West Park represent achievement of the highest order and place the school among the very best in the country. Without a first-rate teaching and associate staff, supportive parents, hard-working pupils and enlightened governance this would not be possible.’

The percentage of our pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is: 10.4 %.

The catering contract being offered will commence on 1.8.2017 for an initial period of three years, concluding on 31.7.2020, and will be offered on a guaranteed performance basis, with a service on each of the 190 full academic days and by agreement for the 5 inset days.

West Park School catering aims:

• To ensure that the whole school community understands the importance of a nutritionally balanced diet in promoting health and wellbeing;

• To offer pupils and staff a range of value for money options, suitable for all customer's budgets to maximise uptake of the catering service;

• To stimulate pupil interest in the service through promotions, variety, new foods and links between to the curriculum.

The School has had the same catering contractor for a significant number of years and this is the first time the contract has been placed at competitive tender for over 10 years.

Annual catering revenue for the year ending 31.8.2016 was 289 000 GBP. The successful contractor is expected to have a local operational presence, as specialist caterers in the Secondary School sector.

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

The School expects the successful contractor to enable the continued development of catering through the provision of an innovative, healthy food service, prepared on-site.

The School intends to focus heavily on healthy, fresh, seasonal, locally sourced produce and sees the catering service as an exciting opportunity to complement the overall student experience, through the regular introduction of new ingredients, themed and promotional events. The successful contractor will be required to play their part in acting as a catalyst for improvement of the pupil experience.

The successful contractor will work closely with the School to manage the provision of catering and the overall ‘meal experience’.

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/west_park_school

The closing date for receipt of the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire is 21.10.2016 (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.