Shoreline own and manage 7,900 homes in North East Lincolnshire.
They proposed to set up two new framework agreements for the provision of internal and external works in their planned investment programme, to replace the contracts coming to the end of their term. These advertised contracts are for a total of £40 million over 4 years, with three contractors in each framework. The underlying works contracts are each 1 year in duration.
What was our role?
We were asked to work with Shoreline through the whole procurement, advising on the EU procurement, contract and procurement strategy, prequalification questionnaires, invitations to tender and contract documentation. The framework agreements were bespoke agreements based on our template. Shoreline adopted the NEC3 target cost (option C) Term Service Contract for the works contracts. Following the full EU restricted procedure procurement process, Shoreline selected three contractors for each framework, and awarded the internal and external works contracts for the first year. We advised Shoreline on all the documentation and procurement process.
What value did we add?
In particular, based on our extensive NEC experience, we developed the amendments to the NEC contract to ensure it conformed to the cost model Shoreline wished to adopt. We also worked with the Shoreline procurement team to ensure that the final documentation issued for tender was comprehensive and consistent with the NEC approach.
Shoreline placed great importance on ensuring that the process fully complied with best EU procurement practice and that any risk of challenge was minimised. We used lessons learned from successfully defending procurement challenges and in running EU compliant tender processes for other clients to achieve this objective. In particular, using our template prequalification questionnaire we were able to ensure that the prequalification and selection processes were fair and transparent, with clear minimum prequalification (pass/fail) tests and selection (scored) questions marked using a robust and defensible scoring system.
Similarly, at tender stage we worked with Shoreline to devise a clear and fair tender evaluation methodology that enabled useful feedback to be given to unsuccessful tenderers without placing excessive demands on Shoreline’s internal resources.
Our involvement in this procurement continued, with the provision of contract management training to the contractors’ and client’s teams.
