CONTRACT NOTICE – OFFICIAL JOURNAL

Section I: Contracting Authority

I.1)

Name, Address and Contact Point(s)

I.2)

Type of contracting Authority and Main Activity or Activities

Other (Please specify) School Academy Trust

General public services Defence Public order and safety Environment Economic and financial affairs Health Housing and community amenities Social protection Recreation, culture and religion Education

Section II: Object of the Contract

II.1)

Description

II.1.1)

Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority

II.1.2(a))

Type of works contract

II.1.2(b))

Type of supplies contract

II.1.2(c))

Type of service contract

II.1.2)

Main site or location of works, place of delivery or performance

The services will be required throughout the United Kingdom.

II.1.3)

This notice involves

A public contract
The setting up of a Dynamic Purchasing System
The establishment of a framework agreement

II.1.4)

Information on framework agreement (if applicable)

Framework agreement with a single operators
Framework agreement with several operators

Number of participants to the framework agreement envisaged

Duration of the framework agreement

Justification for a framework agreement the duration of which exceeds four years

Estimated total value of purchases for the entire duration of the framework agreement

Frequency and value of the contracts to be awarded

II.1.5)

Short description of the contract or purchase(s)

AET is seeking to establish a shared services vehicle to deliver all transactional, commercial and centre of excellence services to the AET Group in conjunction with a commercial provider.

For the avoidance of doubt, the AET Group includes: AET, its subsidiary companies, AET Solutions, London Academies Enterprise Trust, Unity City Academy, all existing academies and any new subsidiaries or schools added to the AET Group in the future.

AET requires expressions of interest from suitably qualified and experienced organisations to enter into an agreement to deliver the services to the AET Group.

The delivery of the services will be via the setting-up of a joint venture, which it is envisaged will be a Limited Liability Partnership ('LLP') or another appropriate corporate structure with a commercial provider ('Joint Venture Partner'). The joint venture will then contract with the AET Group to provide the services ('Services Contract').

The subject of this procurement is to select the Joint Venture Partner and the associated Services Contract. It is envisaged that the proposed joint venture, via the Services Contract and/or via third party contracts procured by the joint venture for the benefit of the AET Group, would deliver services relating to potentially all aspects of AET's business operations including, without limitation, in the following areas:

a. Transactional (including back office) services

— Finance - including accounting, audit, financial advice, business planning, procurement, contract and supply chain management, compliance, risk management and assurance services;

— Facilities management - including both hard and soft facilities management services;

— Human resources - including employee relations, payroll, policy development, reward and remuneration services, business change advice, equality and diversity advice, and selection and recruitment;

— Information and communications technology - including infrastructure services and learning technology support;

— Business intelligence - including infrastructure services and technology advice;

— Operations – including support in the development of transactional services through project management, risk management and continuous improvement; and

— Procurement – including purchasing and contract management.

b. Commercial

Commercial services will ensure the effective use of school funds and assets and wider consultancy and business development support. The commercial team will enable academies to identify external sources of revenue to support the delivery of education. This service would include consultancy and business development support. This service will also oversee the management of leisure facilities and community use.

c. Centre of excellence

Centre of excellence including a full range of educational support and advisory services. The service encompasses the school improvement services required to support every AET academy to achieve and sustain outstanding education. The services cannot replace the education of students within academies by teachers, but instead will support the delivery of education through challenge, monitoring and support.

It is proposed that services will be introduced in a phased manner with the early phases focusing on transactional services. The final approach will be determined as part of the negotiation stage of this procurement.

As part of its role as the Joint Venture Partner, the commercial provider will also be required to provide governance, project management, implementation, transition and exit services over the life of the joint venture. It will also be required to help identify new business opportunities that the joint venture may develop and/or tender for and to support any related bidding processes.

It is also envisaged that:

(i) the Joint Venture Partner will provide expertise to develop the infrastructure and processes to provide the services;

(ii) the Joint Venture Partner will be required to identify investment opportunities related to AET's business operations and, if required, to provide such investment itself and/or secure appropriate third party funding; and

(iii) the joint venture will inherit various legacy contracts, relevant staff and relevant assets from the AET Group as determined through this procurement.

Initially the joint venture vehicle will supply services exclusively to the AET Group but may, in the future, provide services to other education providers. The joint venture vehicle will provide significant parts of the services itself, but may also subcontract or procure other third parties to provide certain services as agreed in any relevant contract documentation that will be agreed between the parties.

Currently, transactional (including back office), commercial and centre of excellence (educational support and advisory) services are provided either by the AET Group or are outsourced to third party providers via services contracts. It is envisaged that the joint venture company will manage these contracts within its scope and/or itself deliver these services.

The aim of the joint venture will be to consolidate services within the scope of the Requirements across the AET Group. The venture will ensure value for money through continuous improvement across the AET Group can be achieved whilst still providing a world-class service to our academies. The successful venture will enable AET to continue to deliver outstanding educational outcomes for our students.

II.1.6)

Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV)

II.1.7)

Contract covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)

II.1.8)

Division into lots

II.1.9)

Will variants be accepted

II.2)

Quantity or Scope of the Contract

II.2.1)

Total quantity or scope

II.2.2)

Options

Provisional timetable for recourse to these options

Number of possible renewals

In the case of renewable supplies or service contracts, estimated time frame for subsequent contracts

II.3)

Duration of the contract or limit for completion

Section III: Legal, Economic, Financial and Technical Information

III.1)

Conditions Relating to the Contract

III.1.1)

Deposits and guarantees required

If it is considered appropriate by the contracting authority, an indemnity, guarantee, bond or other form of appropriate security may be required.

III.1.2)

Main Terms of financing and payment and/or reference to the relevant provisions

As contained within the tender documents.

III.1.3)

Legal form to be taken by the grouping of suppliers, contractors or service providers to whom the contract is to be awarded

The contracting authority reserves the right to require groupings of economic operators to take a particular legal form or to require a single economic operator to take primary liability for a contract to be performed by a group of economic operators or to require each party to undertake joint and several liability in respect of the entire contract irrespective of the form the grouping takes.

III.1.4)

Other particular conditions to which the performance of the contract is subject

As contained in the tender documents.

III.2)

Conditions for Participation

III.2.1)

Personal situation of economic operators, including requirements relating to enrolment on professional or trade registers

In accordance with Articles 45 and 46 of Directive 2004/18/EC and Regulation 23 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2006, as set out in the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire available from the address in section I.1.

III.2.2)

Economic and financial capacity

III.2.3)

Technical capacity

III.2.4)

Reserved contracts

The contract is restricted to sheltered workshops
The execution of the contract is restricted to the framework of sheltered employment programmes

III.3)

Conditions Specific to Service Contracts

III.3.1)

Is provision of the service reserved to a specific profession?

III.3.2)

Will legal entities be required to state the names and professional qualifications of the personnel responsible for the execution of the service?

Section IV: Procedure

IV.1)

Type of Procedure

Open		Restricted
Accelerated restricted		Negotiated
Accelerated negotiated		Competitive dialogue

Justification for the choice of accelerated procedure

IV.1.1)

Have candidates already been selected?

IV.1.2)

Limitations on the number of operators who will be invited to tender or to participate

Objective criteria for choosing the limited number of candidates

As set out in the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire available from the address in section I.1.

IV.1.3)

Reduction of the number of operators during the negotiation or dialogue

Recourse to staged procedure to gradually reduce the number of solutions to be discussed or tenders to be negotiated

IV.2)

Award Criteria

IV.2.2)

An electronic auction will be used

IV.3 Administrative Information

IV.3.1)

Reference number attributed to the notice by the contracting authority

POSS1213

IV.3.2)

Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract

Prior Information Notice
Notice on a Buyer Profile

Other previous publications

IV.3.3)

Conditions for obtaining specifications and additional documents

IV.3.4)

Time-limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate

IV.3.5)

Date of dispatch of invitations to tender or to participate to selected candidates

IV.3.6)

Language or languages in which tenders or requests to participate can be drawn up

IV.3.7)

Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender 

IV.3.8)

Conditions for opening tenders

Section VI: Other Information

VI.1)

Indicate whether this procurement is a recurrent one and the Estimated timing for further notices to be published

VI.2)

Does the contract relate to a Project/Programme financed by Community Funds?

VI.3)

Additional Information

Section I.4) Reference in this section to the contracting authority purchasing on behalf of other contract authorities is a reference to the fact that the arrangements are being put in place for the benefit of the AET Group, which includes AET, its subsidiary companies, AET Solutions, London Academies Enterprise Trust, Unity City Academy, all their existing academy schools and any new subsidiaries or schools added to the group in the future.

Section II.1.9): Reference in this section to variant bids is a reference to proposed solutions under the negotiated procedure. AET may permit those bidders invited to negotiate to propose and/or submit bids for more than one solution. Where this is permitted, the requirements for any additional solutions will be set out in the invitation to negotiate.

Section II.2.1) The value range specified is an estimate and indicative only. Since the full extent of the services required will only emerge as the contract progresses, and necessary services are identified, the final contract value may fall above or below this value range. The upper figure also includes the potential options detailed in Section II.2.2.

Section II.2.2) and II.3): The Services Contract (as defined in Section II.1.5) will be for an initial period of seven years with options (to be exercisable under the Services Contract) to extend the Services Contract for a period or periods up to a further three years depending on business needs giving a total term of 10 years. The joint venture may continue beyond the duration of the Services Contract subject to AET's procurement strategy in relation to any re-competition of the Services Contract.

Section III.3.2): The requirements in relation to the names, professional qualifications and experience of the staff responsible for the execution of the services will be as set out in the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, which is available from the address specified in section I.1.

Section IV.1.2): The minimum number relates to the number to be invited to negotiate. AET reserves the right to invite less than 3 bidders to negotiate should there be less than 3 bidders interested and pre-qualified.

Section IV.3.4): Requests to participate must be made by completing and returning a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire by the date and time (which refers to GMT) specified in section IV.3.4 and in accordance with the instructions set out in the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire. Completed Pre-Qualification Questionnaires submitted after the deadline may not be considered. The Pre-Qualification Questionnaire will be made available to potential providers who have registered their interest via the email address set out at section I.1.

Section IV.3.5): The date for issue of invitation to negotiate documents is provisional and may be subject to change.

Right to Cancel: AET reserves the right to discontinue the procurement process at any time, which shall include the right not to award a contract, and does not bind itself to accept the lowest tender, or any tender received, and reserves the right to award the contract in part, or to call for new tenders should it consider this necessary.

AET shall not be liable for any costs or expenses incurred by any candidate or tenderer in connection with the completion and return of the information requested in this Contract Notice, or in the completion or submission of any tender, irrespective of the outcome of the competition or if the competition is cancelled or postponed.

All dates, time periods and values specified in this notice are provisional and AET reserves the right to change these.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs): AET is keen to encourage the involvement of SMEs and supplier diversity and is therefore willing to consider options and approaches which provide opportunities for supplier diversity within bidders' supply chains.

Transparency: AET is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) and may be required to disclose information received in the course of this procurement under FOIA or the EIR. In addition, and in accordance with the UK Government's policies on transparency, AET intends to publish procurement documentation and the text of any resulting contractual arrangements, subject to possible redactions at the discretion of AET. Any redactions, whether in relation to information requests under FOIA, the EIR or policies on transparency will be in accordance with those grounds prescribed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. Further information on transparency can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/procurement-and-contracting-transparency-requirements-guidance

VI.4)

Procedures for appeal

VI.4.1)

Body responsible for appeal procedures

Body responsible for mediation procedures

VI.4.2)

Lodging of appeals
Precise information on deadline(s) for lodging appeals:

AET will incorporate a standstill period at the point information on the award of the contract is communicated to tenderers. That notification will provide full information on the award decision. The standstill period, which will be for a minimum of 10 calendar days, provides time for unsuccessful tenderers to challenge the award decision before the contract is entered into.

Part 9 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (SI 2006 No 5) (as amended) provides for aggrieved parties who have been harmed or are at risk of harm by a breach of the Regulations to take action in the High Court (England, Wales and Northern Ireland). Any such action must be brought within the applicable limitation periods.

VI.4.3)

Service from which information about the lodging of appeals may be obtained

VI.5)

Dispatch date of this Notice