The Langtree School is a secondary academy based in Woodcote, near Reading, Berkshire. The school is a co-educational secondary, for pupils aged 11 to 16 and presently has just over 600 pupils. The school is a small, rural school in South Oxfordshire which is oversubscribed and take a ‘bulge year’ every fifth year.
The Background
Aware of the significant time investment required to complete such a project, when personnel still have ‘the day job’ to undertake, the school engaged Minerva Procurement Consultancy Services Limited to run it on their behalf whilst working closely with us.
A full restricted tender process was conducted as per Public Contract Regulations (PCR2015) which included a Selection Questionnaire (SQ) and Invitation to Tender (ITT) stage.
Langtree School conducted a tender process to award a contract for the provision of catering services to commence on 01 September 2023, this contract was tendered for three years with consideration to possible extensions of (+1+1) years.
The school required a contractor to undertake the catering service for all year groups within the school in accordance with good practice; to ensure the provision of a high standard of food service for the benefit of all stakeholders including school staff, students, and visitors to the school.
The successful contractor was required to continue the current arrangement in supplying two local primary schools that have their meals delivered via Langtree School and one primary school that has their meals on site at the Langtree site due to lack of facilities.
The school was keen to increase take up and continue the good work already in place for catering. They wish to do so by working closely with the successful contractor in developing and continuously improving the service and partnership during the period of the contract and by introducing innovative and creative ideas as submitted in the tender process and on-going.
Results
Minerva received a good amount of interest from suppliers for the tender at the Expression of Interest stage. In total six suppliers registered to view the opportunity on the In-Tend e-tendering portal.
From the six suppliers which registered to view the opportunity, three suppliers provided completed SQ submissions which were scored based on the documented criteria, and three suppliers were shortlisted to the ITT stage and invited to the site visit and presentation day.
ABM Catering Limited having submitted the most advantageous bid, with the highest scored ITT submission overall, ABM Catering Limited demonstrated a thorough and well thought out approach to the Catering Services for Langtree School. Their understanding of the requirements of Langtree School and the challenges of the location were particularly regarded, as was their commitment to working in partnership with Langtree School to achieve a good level of service.
Customer Feedback
Using Minerva took the stress away from the whole project. We have the confidence that we have complied with the complex tender rules. The whole process ensured that we thought everything through from start to finish. The in-person support on the Visit and Tasting days were invaluable. Will definitely be using Minerva again when it comes to the Cleaning retender. Thank you
Carolyn Ventress, School Business Manager, Langtree School
