The Howard Academy Trust is a Multi Academy Trust comprising six schools based in Kent. The Trust has two secondary schools (one of which is UTC) and four primary schools.
The Background
Minerva Procurement Consultancy Services Limited was engaged to run the procurement process on behalf of The Howard Academy Trust for the provision of ‘Payroll and HR Administration System Provision’ that commenced on 10 January 2023, with the operational services commencement on the 1 April 2023. The contract was tendered for three years with consideration of possible extensions of (+1+1) years.
The total contract value for The Howard Academy Trust Payroll and HR Administration System Provision was expected to exceed the PCR2015 threshold of £213,477 and therefore required a procurement process which met the Public Contract Regulations 2015.
In agreement with The Howard Academy a ‘Restricted Tender’ procedure was chosen, this included two stages, the initial Selection Questionnaire (SQ) stage and the Invitation to Tender (ITT) stage.
The Trust had their own payroll and HR staff and so the service provision required was purely for the system and associated support to facilitate processing the in-house payroll and HR services. However, access to appropriately skilled staff for support with technical/system queries was required.
Results
In total, six providers submitted a SQ response and of those shortlisted to the ITT stage four bidders submitted a complete bid. From those four, three suppliers were invited to an online presentation day with The Howard Academy Trust panel. Access UK Limited were subsequently awarded the contract.
Access UK Limited submitted the most advantageous bid, with the lowest cost, and the highest scored ITT submission overall. Access UK Limited demonstrated a thorough and well thought out approach to the Payroll and HR Administration System Provision for trust and instilled confidence that the provision would be an important focus with an emphasis through the implementation phase.
The standstill period of 10-days was observed from notification of award of the contract in order to allow time for other bidders to challenge the decision should they feel it has been unfair in any way, the standstill period ended without challenge on 29 December 2022.
Customer Feedback
“The process was smooth and well managed. Lorraine in particular is very happy to spend time explaining everything in detail.”
Kyle Taylor, Director of Finance and Operations
