A quick guide to. school food procurement

Transcription

1 A quick guide to school food procurement

2 Contents Page Why is good procurement important? 3 Good procurement in practice 4 Procurement decision tree 5 What are my options? 8 Pros and cons 9 How do I decide? 10 Evaluation and contract management 10 Where can I get help? 11 The Children s Food Trust 13 Contact us 14 02

3 Why is good procurement important? The education sector in England spends 1 billion a year on catering. 1 For the average school, that is around 10% of their budget. 2 Making sure you re getting the very best value for your budget is crucial, but how do you choose the best ways to buy goods, support or services for your school? This guide takes you through the steps you need to take and questions you need to ask. The basics. Include school food procurement as part of your overall school policy on buying goods and services. This policy should support your school s mission and vision.»» Whichever route best meets your needs, you must always follow good procurement practice and due diligence requirements. 1 National Audit Office public sector food expenditure report, Consolidated Financial Reporting, 2008/2009 Introduction 03

4 Good procurement in practice All local authority-maintained, academy and free schools are funded by public money. Everyone spending public money has to make sure it s done fairly, and that we re all getting good value as taxpayers. That means you have a legal obligation to understand and comply with a set of basic rules on procurement. These rules also protect you from legal challenge, financial penalties and damage to your reputation and that of your school. What are the rules? These are set out under the European Procurement Directive and ratified in UK law. They are legally binding for anyone responsible for spending public money, to safeguard the fair competition principles set out below. If you fail to comply with the regulations, there can be serious consequences. 04 Good procurement in practice

5 Here are the five key principles. Equality: all suppliers bidding for public sector contracts must be treated equally. Non-discrimination: do not discriminate, directly or indirectly, against another European Union state, or its workers. Do not impose contract requirements that a supplier from elsewhere in the European Union (EU) could not meet. Transparency: all procurement of a sufficiently high value must be advertised, to make it possible for suppliers from across the European Union to find out about the work and potentially, bid for it. Mutual recognition: all European Union countries must recognise professional qualifications, technical standards and similar accreditation issued by other member states. Proportionality: don t make bidders fill in a 30-page form if only one or two pages of that information are genuinely relevant to the bid. Procurement decision tree The procurement decision tree has been developed by the Department for Education. It takes you through the basic questions and choices you ll need to consider when you need to procure any goods, works or services for your school. See overleaf. Procurement decision tree 05

6 Check your budget - do you have sufficient money? Do you have authority to spend? Check - is the total value of this procurement likely to exceed EU thresholds? Goods and services - 173,934 Works (buildings) - 4,358,350 NO Can this purchase be made through a framework contract? (e.g. held by Government Procurement Service (GPS), your local authority or professional buying organisation) NO Low (routine purchase, small-value: below around 10,000) Procurement decision tree Before you buy - take time to plan! Better planning and understanding at the start will make the rest of the process quicker and more efficient and secure, with fewer legal risks Start procurement Estimate the whole-life cost of your purchase YES YES The higher the value, the more care you need to take! So, is the total value of your procurement likely to be Medium (routine purchase, but significant value between around 10,000 to around 40,000) Assess alternatives to buying (such as informal loans of equipment or sharing resources with other local schools) NB: If you can make your EU-qualifying purchase through a framework, this will help you meet the more detailed EU requirements more easily You MUST follow EU procurement rules - advertise, tender, award based on transparent evaulation. See DfE guidance for schools procurement Purchase from framework agreement - the hard work has been done for you! A framework contract ensures you are getting favourable terms and conditions, good value for money, and legal compliance. High (big budget or one-off purchase: above around 40,000 but below qualifying EU budget threshold) 06 Procurement decision tree

7 Produce business case - set out your reason for procurement, options, recommendations Obtain quote(s) from supplier(s) - Ideally more than one and in writing Obtain at least three written quotes from suppliers View the DfE Procurement Resource for advice, and/or follow the EU procurement guidance Produce tender advertisment Evaluate quotations / tender based on the whole-life cost of your procurement Check preferred supplier s credentials (financial etc) Identify supplier OR bid offering best value for money Use evaluation criteria to score all qualifying tenders and indentify highest-scoring bid Place order OR award contract Check delivery against terms of contract Remember audit trail - make sure all relevant documents are kept and stored securely Ongoing - manage and monitor contract from delivery through to completion Check - before contract is due to end - will you want to renew or replace with simliar goods / services? How soon? End of contract Procurement decision tree 07

8 What are my options? 1) Buy direct You might want to organise your own contract with a company for a service or a commodity. If this is the case, you ll need to contract directly with the supplier and make sure they follow good procurement practice and apply due diligence across their supply chain. Options include procuring from: local companies national procurement companies. 2) Use an existing contract or framework agreement You join other schools in buying direct from an existing contract or framework agreement. These may have been set up by one of the following organisations: local authority procurement department local authority procurement organisation other public sector buying organisations. Framework agreements Public sector procurement organisations and some local authorities will have (or have access to) framework agreements for certain products. These set out the terms for individual contracts made by each school under the agreement. This means the legal aspects should have been taken care of for you, the price will be set and issues for service and delivery already addressed. You may find you can save time and effort by using these sorts of agreements which in turn, save suppliers time on bidding for work, reduce costs and get you lower prices. Framework agreements may include small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), local companies, and larger national or international companies. 08 What are my options?

9 Pros and cons Procuring direct Advantages You can negotiate with the supplier. This may mean you can agree your own terms for things like price and frequency of deliveries. This can also be the case for framework agreements. You get to work with local companies and develop relationships with the local business community which are mutually beneficial. However, don t forget that local companies can be included in framework agreements. Your school can collaborate with others to buy locally and enjoy the benefits of this for price and reliability of supply. This can also be done via framework agreements. Challenges You have to make sure that due diligence is being followed and maintained within the supply chain. You will have to make sure that all legal aspects of the contract have been met. Depending on the size of the contract, you will have to make sure you re following EU procurement regulations. If you re using a smaller supplier, your service may be more at risk if they have an unexpected delivery issue. They re likely to have less internal cover for things like equipment breakdown or illness. With smaller suppliers, there is a greater risk of insolvency and disruption to the supply chain. An existing contract or framework agreement Advantages The due diligence and legal aspects of the contract should have been completed for you. This will mean that you can focus on the detailed specification for your school. Bulk buying power will get you better prices. Less risk of financial failure disrupting supply. The framework provider will advise and support you throughout the process. They will also manage any contractual issues relating to the framework agreement. You get the opportunity to collaborate with other local schools to buy locally and enjoy the benefits of this in terms of price and reliability of supply. Challenges You might have to pay extra distribution costs on top of the final price. You may not have a lot of say on terms and conditions of the contract. Pros and cons 09

10 How do I decide? Think about what your school (or the cluster of schools you re working with) needs from the particular service or product you need to buy. Things to consider include: how it will help you meet the national school food standards (to find out more, please visit how much it costs how often it will be delivered the quality of the product or service how sustainable it is for example food miles that you can meet all the due diligence requirements. Once you ve decided which procurement route you want to follow, make sure you get a contract in place that outlines the agreed terms and conditions and your specifications. This way, even if you re only buying a small product or service, you ve got a record of what you and your supplier have agreed, and what you expect from each other. Evaluation and contract management Once you ve awarded your contract, keep monitoring progress. Go back to the procurement decision tree and make sure it is meeting the terms you agreed. You can also benchmark your school against similar schools to make sure you re getting the best service and best price. 10 How do I decide? / Evaluation and contract management

11 Where can I get help? School meals: achieving efficiency guide Procuring school food is complicated and involves big budgets. That s why we ve brought together our top advice and information on running an efficient school meals service in an easy to use, quick-find guide. It ll help you save time and money, focusing your resources to get the best out of your budget. To read or download the guide please visit Food Delivery for Schools Programme This is a Government initiative, set up to make the most of the bulk-buying power of schools and to help you save time and money. It is managed by the Pro5 Group of the largest public buying organisations in the UK, working in partnership with the Department for Education and the Children s Food Trust. FDfS has set up pre-approved contracts with suppliers of some of the most common school food ingredients, which thousands of schools have already joined. It has also set up lists of pre-approved companies offering catering services, which you can use to find a company to best meet your needs. To find out more about the FDfS Programme please visit Where can I get help? 11

12 Where can I get help? Department for Education If your school is an academy, the Department for Education has published a guide to procurement for you online at: open/a /procurementresource If your school is not an academy, you ll find procurement advice from the department online at: schoolsprocurementresource. This signposts you to deals for goods and services to help with your procurement responsibilities. It includes information on: areas of spend where you can save money and get better value organisations that provide contracts, deals and frameworks. 12 Where can I get help?

13 The Children s Food Trust Whether you re starting from scratch and launching a new school meal service, or looking for fresh ideas and solutions to long-standing problems in your kitchen or dining room, our school food experts can help. We can support you on all aspects of the school lunchtime from kitchen equipment to menus, space and decor in your dining room, training, marketing, recruitment and finance. See back page for our contact details. About our staff Our children s food advisers have a huge range of experience working on all aspects of school food including catering and teaching, research, training, cookery, school food finance, promotion and design. Why us? Since 2005 we ve helped to reverse decades of decline in the number of children eating school meals. We ve done this by leading the implementation of some of the world s toughest national standards for school food and helping schools find practical ways to improve the whole lunchtime experience for their children. We ve reached more than 2.5 million people through our Let s Get Cooking programme, which has established the country s biggest network of healthy cooking clubs in schools. More than half of club members say they now eat more healthily after learning to cook with us. We ve produced the first, nationally-recognised guidelines and training for food and drink provision in early years settings in England. The work of our research team has been peer-reviewed and published internationally, presenting unprecedented findings including evidence that when children eat better, they do better.»» We are one of only seven organisations in the country to hold a 2011 Health Promotion and Community Well being Organisation and Partnership award from the Royal Society for Public Health. Where can I get help? 13

14 The Children s Food Trust The Children s Food Trust aims to reduce childhood obesity and improve educational performance through improving the food our children eat both in and out of school and in early years settings. We work directly with thousands of schools, millions of parents and local authorities across the country. We campaign on key issues in school food. We run the UK s biggest network of cooking clubs and, under our previous name of the School Food Trust, we were directly responsible for developing and introducing the national food and nutrition guidelines in both schools and early years settings. We make a difference, and would be pleased to help you too. Let s Get Cooking Let s Get Cooking provides training, support and resources for setting up and running healthy cooking activities for people of all ages. Let s Get Cooking is a programme run by the Children s Food Trust. Contact us Children s Food Trust, 3rd Floor, 1 East Parade, Sheffield S1 2ET Tel: info@childrensfoodtrust.org.uk Website: Children s Food Trust registered charity number CFTQGdProc(v2)