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Case Study

Commercial Discovery – A trust wide analysis of compliance, savings and social value

Value Match support the education sector through the delivery of our Commercial Discovery programme to enable organisations to maximise their opportunity to drive efficiencies, release cashable savings and create Social Value through all their commercial and procurement activity.

The Commercial Discovery programme includes a detailed analysis of third party spend, alongside key information such as understanding ways of working, schemes of delegation and current contracting statuses to create a baseline from which improvements can be made.

Challenge

Based on our engagement with over 100 schools to date, there are common challenges:

    • Procurement is a complex and a continuously changing landscape so often don’t know where to start.
    • Many schools simply don’t have the time, resources or skillsets to navigate the procurement process efficiently.
    • External procurement services may have the required expertise but don’t understand the nuances and specific needs of the education sector.
    • Different schools have diverse requirements and ‘one size’ doesn’t fit all
    • Spend is disaggregate across multiple contracts and suppliers.
    • Large numbers of low value transactions.

To date, we have analysed over £70,000,000 of spend data, 150,000 transactions, covering over 100 schools which has demonstrated all trusts are experiencing the same issues.

Solutions

Our Commercial Discovery interprets spend patterns to identify areas of inefficient spending, categories of high spending and areas of non-compliance. The output being a set of key actions to improve outcomes around:

  • Cost Reduction
  • Improved efficiency
  • Greater control of suppliers
  • Tighter compliance processes
  • Increased Social Value impact
  • Improved contract management and supplier relationship management

Our services have been comprehensively designed to support the entire commercial and procurement process. Whether you’re completely new to purchasing or want to develop a more coordinated, strategic approach to consistently unlock better value, we can help.

Our expert team will work with you to understand your current situation and requirements with a view to establishing a tailored strategy that will release cashable savings now and in the longer term. Working with you, rather than simply for you, we want to demystify the procurement function, share best practice and upskill and empower your team.

Outcomes

The Commercial Discovery process identifies various outcomes based on your organisation’s current position.

Examples include:

Procuring workplace solutions for a multi-academy trust in the North East, whereby we were able to deliver benefits such as:

  • Provided an overall 42% saving against current costs. (equating to £142,000 over the life of the contract)
  • Consolidated invoices from 3000 invoices per year, to 12 invoices per year for each school from a single supplier
  • Suitable and focused added value with the supplier to offer sessions such as mock interviews to prepare the pupils for the world of work, climate change engagement talks and school garden project workshops with a monetary donation to support this initiative.
  • Visibility of CO2 emissions linked to deliveries with optimal delivery plans enabled to minimise impact.

Procuring waste management services for a multi academy trust based in West Yorkshire, which enabled them to begin their journey to become an eco-school:

  • Appointed a single supplier to deliver waste management services across all academies within the trust, removing duplication and generating efficiencies.
  • Free annual waste audit, reporting on waste streams to be recycled and eliminated
  • Introducing Environmental awareness campaigns and Fundraising
  • Using the ‘Environmental Calendar’ to engage through events targeted around specific agendas such as Earth Day, World Bee Day, Every Flower Counts and National Allotments Week.
For further information, contact Lindsay Rosul

T: 07702 823 648
E: Lindsay.Rosul@value-match.co.uk

Categories
Case Study

Maximising Value and Minimising Carbon Footprint: An Academies Trust’s Successful Partnership for Efficient and Sustainable Waste Management

Successful partnership between a Trust and a waste management company that has led to the efficient and sustainable management of waste.  The partnership not only helped the trust to minimise its carbon footprint but also maximise value by reducing costs and generating income from waste streams.

Challenge

The Academies Trust are a growing trust and as part of their growth they were looking at their current waste management provision across the multiple sites.  The Trust wanted to appoint a supplier to deliver an efficient and effective waste management service across all schools within the Trust to achieve a safe and environmentally sound provision, whilst adopting a proactive partnership approach to sustainability.  The Trust are also working towards the eco-school programme and were looking for a supplier to provide expertise as part of this contract. A primary objective is to maximise value for money through collection efficiency while ensuring their carbon footprint is minimised to improve the Trust’s sustainability performance.

Solution

Value Match understood the challenges the Trust faced and conducted the procurement by;
  • Engaging with the Trust’s stakeholders to develop a suitable specification that met the core service requirements as well as strategic sustainability objectives and the eco-schools programme.
  • Utilising the YPO DPS for Building in Use Support Services, Lot 8 Waste Management
  • Engaging with the Trust to understand the incumbent suppliers and supported those suppliers to register on the YPO DPS to ensure they could be included within the tender
  • Compiling the appropriate documentation and managing the end-to-end process to ensure compliance with procurement legislation, equal treatment of bidders and transparency
  • Evaluation training was conducted with the evaluation panel to provide an understanding of the process and what was expected of the team to ensure fair and equal treatment of bidders
  • Managing the technical, commercial and moderation evaluation process along with preparing evaluation reports and supplier debriefing letters/discussions
  • Drafting and finalisation of the Contract for signatures

Outcome

 Through the delivery of the solution the Trust were able to achieve;
  1. A complete and compliant, cost-effective procurement process resulting in the most economically advantageous tender being awarded.
  2. The appointment of a supplier that can deliver a high quality service through a solution that is scalable for the Trust and will provide additional sustainability and social value benefits to meet strategic objectives
  3. The appointment of a single service provider with an account management structure and proactive contract management reviews
  4. Savings of 11.8% across the contract

Benefits

The Trust were able to achieve the following efficiency benefits from the procurement:
  1. One single supplier to deliver waste management services across all academies
  2. One supplier, contract and KPIs to manage across the Trust
  3. Reduced number of invoices to manage
  4. Able to scale up the contract to add additional academies as the Trust grows
  5. Further efficiencies to be identified throughout the contract on environmental, waste and sustainability impact.
The Trust were able to appoint a supplier with a commitment to developing a partnership to deliver Added Value, Social Value and Sustainability throughout the contract.

Sustainability

  1. Biffa will provide carbon footprint reporting to support the Trust with their scope 3 carbon emissions
  2. Support for the Trust, becoming more sustainable and managing the environmental impact by introducing a programme to review how waste is managed, identified actions and continuous development of environmental performance
  3. Biffa to support and advise on looking at how food waste can be reduced and recycled across the Academies, with options for biodegradable and anaerobic waste

Social Value

An eco programme, that will include;
  1. Supporting a Joint litter picking campaign where Biffa will provide the liners and pickers
  2. Free annual waste audit, reporting on waste streams to be recycled and eliminated. One recent study confirmed 58% of general waste could be recycled through existing recycling bins onsite.
  3. Sustainability initiatives and programmes for ‘Sustainability Week’; ‘Positive Health & Environment Week and Plastics recycling week.
  4. Creation of bespoke education programmes and the Trust have access to request an eLearning service
  5. Supporting the Trust’s supply chain to remove ‘non’ recyclable products
  6. Working with Parents Associations
  7. Environmental Awareness Campaigns and Fundraising. Working with key stakeholders within the Trust’s and the student board, to encourage onsite engagement through environmental awareness events and fund-raising activities to increase financial support the Trust’s biodiversity goals.
  8. Using the ‘Environmental Calendar’ Biffa will engage with events targeted around specific agendas such as Earth Day, World Bee Day, Every Flower Counts and National Allotments Week.
  9. Biffa allow each employee 1 x paid day per year to volunteer.
  10. Biffa will support the Trust in biodiversity projects at any of their sites and encourages its regional employees to provide support.
  11. 6 hours of dedicated onsite, custom training and education to support staff and students, per term. This equates to 24 hours per annum of direct support.
The project was completed within 16 weeks ensuring the trust were able to fully mobilise in advance of the contract start date.
For further information, contact Lindsay Rosul

T: 07702 823 648
E: Lindsay.Rosul@value-match.co.uk