You’ve run your tender process, awarded the contract, the new provider has started in your school or Trust, but how can you be sure that what you wanted (and what they promised!) is what you’re getting?
Two of the most complex services in a school or Trust are catering and cleaning. In this blog we will look at how to structure your contract monitoring to achieve the best results.
Whilst this does not cover monitoring other types of contract, there are still some useful tips that you can apply to your contract monitoring.
There is a lot of information to impart and so we’ve broken it down into four distinct, but related, posts:
- The foundations of good contract monitoring
- Catering contract monitoring – some specifics
- Cleaning contract monitoring – some specifics
- Formal review meetings – why they’re important and what to include
What were you promised?
The first stage of monitoring is to identify exactly what the service should look like:
- What was agreed in the tender process as part of the specification? You may have adjusted the contract requirements based on the successful bidder’s tender submission, so bear in mind that your tender specification may not be the whole picture!
- What expectations and agreements are there around finances:
- Guaranteed subsidy / returns / NIL cost contract (catering)
- Profit share of any betterment to budget (catering)
- Process for non-delivered hours – credit on next invoice or banked hours (cleaning)
- Key Performance Indicators – what was agreed as part of the tender or as part of the post contract award negotiations?
- Agreed frequency of strategic review meetings
- Agreed frequency of operational onsite visits
- Key elements that your stakeholders consider important (staff, pupils, governors/trustees) e.g. commitment to NetZero, sustainability
Information Requirements
Ensuring you ‘set out your stall’ early in terms of your expectations from the contractor in respect of monitoring is critically important. Get this wrong at the outset and it’s harder to make adjustments later on down the line.
Key to monitoring any complex contract is information! So, on that basis, advising the contractor of what you need and when is vital.
Whether you’re at the commencement of a new contract or part way through an existing one, we’d suggest the following information is helpful:
Catering contracts:
- A phased copy of the current budget.
- All invoices raised for the contractual year to date (if applicable) – to be provided monthly thereafter.
- A detailed trading account for each month, to include:
- A breakdown of sales by income stream – to be provided monthly thereafter.
- A breakdown of labour costs – to be provided monthly thereafter.
- A breakdown of sundry expenses – to be provided monthly thereafter.
- A breakdown of the free issues billed, i.e. hospitality with the dates and items ordered and who from the school authorised it. FSM and UIFSM uptake numbers – to be provided monthly thereafter.
- A copy of the current menu – to be provided termly (or on amendment) thereafter.
- A list of the DBS numbers and issue dates of all staff onsite and any Area Management who may visit and be unsupervised – to be provided when there are changes to any personnel.
- A copy of the relevant legal agreement (if you don’t already have it).
- A copy of the KPIs/SLAs between you and the contractor – to be provided monthly thereafter.
- And don’t forget that annually you should also ensure you get a copy of the revised budget at least 3 months before the start of the new contract year.
Cleaning contracts:
- Actual hours input for the contractual year to date and budgeted hours for the full year – to be provided monthly thereafter.
- A copy of all invoices raised for the contractual year to date (if applicable), to include standard service invoices and adhoc invoices – to be provided monthly thereafter.
- A copy of planned period works – whether this by GANTT chart of otherwise.
- A copy of the current cleaning specification bespoke to the school.
- A completed version of a labour schedule to represent the current staffing structure – hours worked and shift patterns – to be provided when there are any updates.
- A list of the DBS numbers and issue dates of all staff onsite and any Area Management who may visit and be unsupervised – to be provided when there are changes to any personnel.
- A copy of the KPIs/SLAs agreed between the contractor and you – to be provided at an agreed frequency thereafter.
- A copy of the relevant legal agreement (if you don’t already have it).
- The report of the most recent Quality Audit carried out – to be provided monthly thereafter.
