The Stonehenge School
The Stonehenge School is a thriving secondary school serving pupils aged 11–16 in Amesbury, Wiltshire. With a rapidly growing roll and significant investment in its estate in recent years, the school has developed some of the best facilities and learning environments in the county.
As the school continued to expand, it recognised the importance of securing a cleaning partner capable of maintaining exceptionally high standards of cleanliness, compliance and presentation across its modern facilities. The school therefore undertook a strategic review of its cleaning arrangements and sought support from Minerva Procurement Consultancy Services Limited to deliver a compliant procurement exercise under the Procurement Act 2023.
The Background
The procurement presented several key challenges:
- Maintaining high cleaning standards across an expanding estate and increasing pupil population
- Ensuring value for money whilst protecting service quality
- Maintaining the appropriate staffing levels in a difficult to recruit areas to ensure hours are delivered
- Including sustainability, innovation and social value within the service delivery model
- Delivering a fully compliant procurement process under the new Procurement Act 2023 regulation framework
Minerva managed the end-to-end procurement process, including information gathering from the incumbent contractor, tender documentation, clarification management, evaluation support and contract award publication.
Minerva delivered a transparent, and fully auditable process in accordance with the Procurement Act 2023.
Results
The tender generated strong market engagement and enabled the school to evaluate a range of experienced education cleaning providers.
The procurement delivered:
- A compliant and fully auditable procurement process in line with the Procurement Act 2023
- Access to high-quality cleaning contractors capable of supporting the growing secondary school environment
- New ranges of cleaning products and equipment with environmental and sustainability benefits
- Strong and dynamic contract management oversight
Customer Feedback
Mrs Jo Wakeham, School Business Manager, commented: “Working with Minerva Procurement Consultancy Services Limited for the second time on the tender for our cleaning contracted service has once again been an excellent experience. Following an initial discussion with Lorraine Ashover, we quickly received a fully TPA-compliant procurement timetable. This was thoughtfully planned around the school holidays, giving bidders sufficient time to prepare high-quality submissions while also allowing us adequate time to undertake site visits and complete the evaluation and moderation process thoroughly.
Throughout the project, communication from Lorraine and the wider team was consistently clear, timely, and well structured. Every email provided detailed guidance on each stage of the procurement process, ensuring we always understood the next steps and our responsibilities.
Receiving 19 initial expressions of interest gave us an excellent pool of potential suppliers from which to begin the selection process. Minerva then supported us through the shortlisting stage, offering valuable advice and expert guidance that gave us confidence in our decisions while ensuring the process remained fair and compliant.
The team also managed all aspects of the site visit arrangements, liaising directly with bidders to ensure both they and the school had everything required. Having Minerva coordinate the logistics removed a significant administrative burden, allowing us to focus on assessing the quality of each bidder.
Another particularly valuable aspect of the service was strong representation from Minerva to attend and professionally minute the final presentations. This allowed our team to concentrate fully on engaging with bidders, asking probing questions, and evaluating their responses, knowing that a comprehensive and accurate record was being maintained which will serve well as a clear audit trail of decisions made.
Using Minerva represented excellent value for money. Their expertise ensured that every aspect of the procurement process was conducted in full compliance with procurement regulations, giving us complete confidence and removing the stress of managing complex compliance requirements ourselves.
I would have no hesitation in recommending Minerva Procurement Consultancy Services Limited to any school or academy trust looking to procure or renew a high-value contract that falls within the relevant procurement thresholds. Their knowledge, professionalism, and end-to-end support saved us a considerable amount of time, reduced risk, and gave us confidence that the process was being managed to the highest standard.”
