UK-Willenhall: school catering services

Provision of catering services.
The successful tenderer will be required to provide catering services at
the 5 Schools detailed below:
— Lodge Farm Primary School, Willenhall, West Midlands ~ delivered
requirement,
— County Bridge Primary School, Walsall, West Midlands ~ delivered
requirement,
— Short Heath Junior School, Willenhall, West Midlands ~ delivered
requirement,
— King Charles Primary School, Walsall, West Midlands ~ central production
kitchen,
— Bentley West Primary School, Walsall, West Midlands ~ production
kitchen.
The catering service provision at all five project schools has never been
market tested and the incumbent contractor is Walsall DSO. To ensure best
value principles are applied the Headteachers and School Governors of each
School have made a decision to tender the catering service provision. The
key objective of the tender exercise is to improve service standards and
ensure a "value for money" service, based on price and quality, is offered
throughout the Cluster.
The schools are all located within a 3 mile radius of each other in and
around the Bentley / Willenhall area of Walsall, West Midlands.
Two of the larger schools have production kitchens, however County Bridge
Primary, King Charles Primary and Lodge Farm Primary will require a daily
delivered hot food service. The successful contractor will need to
establish whether the 2 production kitchens available within the Cluster
have the capacity to cater for the hot delivered food service provision or
would production and supply need to come from an alternative source.
However, the preferred option would be to utilise the facilities available
at Bentley West and King Charles Primary Schools.
All catering staff are currently employed by the incumbent contractor to
manage and oversee the lunchtime service and therefore TUPE Regulations
will apply to this contract. The successful contractor must have the
ability to offer comparable pension arrangements to the LPGS.
Current uptake levels are around 40 % with an annual turnover figure of
circa 200 000 GBP across all 5 locations. The Schools firmly believe that
with improved choice and quality there is a real opportunity to increase
this level of uptake. In addition to this there is a key focus to
Community support and services and this may also be an opportunity to
increase turnover during the contract term.
CPV: 55524000.