Hounsdown School is an Ofsted Outstanding single academy trust secondary school based in Southampton, Hampshire. Co-educational for students aged 11 to 16 the school has a capacity of just over 1,200.
The Background
The school outsource their IT support via an ICT Managed Service contract. As the contract had reached the maximum compliant term, Hounsdown needed to run a tender to re-appoint the existing provider or appoint a new one.
Based on conversations with the school, Minerva made them aware that the overall contract value would likely exceed the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR2015 legislation in force at the time) threshold of £213,477 (including VAT).
Key requirements for the school from Minerva included:
- On-site/online support for activities such as a presentation day.
- Knowledge transfer to assist in the up-skilling of school personnel in procurement expertise.
- Knowledge of what a ‘value for money’ solution looks like in the spend area of ICT Managed Services.
Like many schools in this situation, Hounsdown needed a Statement of Requirements (technical specification) to be drafted to support the tender activity. However, the only people on site who can do that were those working for the incumbent supplier. In order to ensure that they did not set the specification to their advantage (thereby putting other bidders at a disadvantage) Minerva supported Hounsdown to appoint an independent ICT consultant to draft that specification.
Minerva recommended that Hounsdown used the two-stage restricted procedure under the PCR2015 such that the competition could be open to all bidders during the Selection Questionnaire (SQ) stage and then a more manageable shortlist of bidders taken through to the Invitation to Tender (ITT) stage.
Results
In total twelve ICT contractors submitted an SQ response and of those shortlisted to the ITT stage three bidders submitted a complete bid. Those three suppliers were invited to a presentation day with the school representatives.
Having submitted the most advantageous bid, and the highest scored ITT submission overall, turn IT on Ltd demonstrated a thorough and well thought out approach to the ICT Managed Services for Hounsdown School. What was important to the school was that they had a requirement to really move their ICT provision to ‘the next level’ of development and it was felt that turn IT on were based placed to support the school’s aspirations.
Customer Feedback
Thank you for all your hard work on this tender. We are delighted with the way it has been run.
Kim Jackson, School Business Manager, Hounsdown School
