Contract notice – utilities
Section I: Contracting
entity
I.1) Name and addresses
NORTHUMBRIAN WATER GROUP LIMITED
2366703
Northumbria House,Abbey Road, Pity Me
DURHAM
DH15FJ
UK
Contact person: Laura McMain
Telephone: +44 7805786518
E-mail: laura.mcmain@nwl.co.uk
NUTS: UKC14
Internet address(es)
Main address: https://www.nwl.co.uk
Address of the buyer profile: https://www.nwl.co.uk
I.3) Communication
The procurement documents are available for unrestricted and full direct access, free of charge at:
https://s1.ariba.com
Additional information can be obtained from the abovementioned address
Tenders or requests to participate must be sent electronically to:
https://s1.ariba.com
I.6) Main activity
Water
Section II: Object
II.1) Scope of the procurement
II.1.1) Title
Household Water Saving Retrofit Audits
Reference number: NW2703
II.1.2) Main CPV code
71800000
II.1.3) Type of contract
Services
II.1.4) Short description
NWL has set itself challenging targets to achieve real and quantifiable water savings through its water efficiency strategy to reach a long-term goal of 110 litres per person per day by 2050 and a 9.7% reduction between 2025 and 2030. Water saving visits have been a key component of our water efficiency strategy. The tried and tested approach successfully combines the provision and fitting of water saving products in customer's homes and effective water efficiency education with each customer. This approach has proven to deliver long-term behaviour change. Water's Worth Saving is our household retrofit water saving visit project. We are seeking to employ a contractor to deliver the project to our highest use customers across our Northern, Essex and Suffolk supply areas for the whole of AMP8 (2025 - 2030). We aim to award the contract to a contractor that can demonstrate the wide range of facets required to successfully deliver our project for 2025 - 2027, with extensions up to and including 2030. Below is an overview of the core components for this project to give you an idea of what the contractor will be responsible for, and some of the practical and logistical requirements and deliverables we expect:
•Inbound and outbound call handling
•Arranging appointments, including rescheduling
•Organise/plan technician routes/diaries around appointments,
•Organise/facilitate the transfer, storage and monitoring of stock
•Gaining an understanding of customers, who they are and how/why/when water is used the way it is
•Engaging with customer through relevant behavioural change messaging, making the interaction personal and tailored to the customer
•Delivery and installation of suitable water saving interventions, taking flow measurements, and substituting alternative products
•Minor internal leak repairs (such as leaking toilets, tap washer replacements etc.)
•Remedial visits
•Monitoring call centre and field staff productivity
•Robust and quality assured data collection, for example collecting data from visit around products installed, meter reads, any other areas of interest, on an electronic form
•Reporting, for example a weekly report of work complete, a monthly overview, and a final project review report
•Collection of water consumption data to assess water savings
•Post intervention customer survey
•Post interventions follow up to customers,
•Quality assurance random sampling,
•Providing feedback and recommendations of improvement prior to review phase,
•Regular catch ups with the project team to cover aspects such as training, project progress and any support required.
The regulatory year runs from April to March with a requirement to report activity completed to regulators covering this period every year. The objective is to provide validated data on the details of the work completed annually so that this data can be analysed and used for NWG's annual reporting. The project for the first year of the contract will be completed by January 2026 including a period for review of the final report and database by NWG, followed by any required amendments and clarification. Please note: Due to the nature of the project, we require the contractor to be able to deliver the work across all three operating areas, throughout the duration of the contract. This is due to mailing customers in several areas to ensure the target number of properties if achieved. We aim to achieve a minimum of 16,500 visits per year. Based on previous projects and uptake information, it is estimated that we will need to engage with approximately 110,000 over 12 months (based on a 15% uptake rate) via a recruitment communication. This would mean ~9000 customers per month. Please use this as indicative information only, as figures may change due to this project being dynamic and through a new approach.
II.1.6) Information about lots
This contract is divided into lots:
No
II.2) Description
II.2.3) Place of performance
NUTS code:
UKC
UKH14
UKH3
II.2.4) Description of the procurement
NWL has set itself challenging targets to achieve real and quantifiable water savings through its water efficiency strategy to reach a long-term goal of 110 litres per person per day by 2050 and a 9.7% reduction between 2025 and 2030. Water saving visits have been a key component of our water efficiency strategy. The tried and tested approach successfully combines the provision and fitting of water saving products in customer's homes and effective water efficiency education with each customer. This approach has proven to deliver long-term behaviour change. Water's Worth Saving is our household retrofit water saving visit project. We are seeking to employ a contractor to deliver the project to our highest use customers across our Northern, Essex and Suffolk supply areas for the whole of AMP8 (2025 - 2030). We aim to award the contract to a contractor that can demonstrate the wide range of facets required to successfully deliver our project for 2025 - 2027, with extensions up to and including 2030. Below is an overview of the core components for this project to give you an idea of what the contractor will be responsible for, and some of the practical and logistical requirements and deliverables we expect:
•Inbound and outbound call handling
•Arranging appointments, including rescheduling
•Organise/plan technician routes/diaries around appointments,
•Organise/facilitate the transfer, storage and monitoring of stock
•Gaining an understanding of customers, who they are and how/why/when water is used the way it is
•Engaging with customer through relevant behavioural change messaging, making the interaction personal and tailored to the customer
•Delivery and installation of suitable water saving interventions, taking flow measurements, and substituting alternative products
•Minor internal leak repairs (such as leaking toilets, tap washer replacements etc.)
•Remedial visits
•Monitoring call centre and field staff productivity
•Robust and quality assured data collection, for example collecting data from visit around products installed, meter reads, any other areas of interest, on an electronic form
•Reporting, for example a weekly report of work complete, a monthly overview, and a final project review report
•Collection of water consumption data to assess water savings
•Post intervention customer survey
•Post interventions follow up to customers,
•Quality assurance random sampling,
•Providing feedback and recommendations of improvement prior to review phase,
•Regular catch ups with the project team to cover aspects such as training, project progress and any support required.
The regulatory year runs from April to March with a requirement to report activity completed to regulators covering this period every year. The objective is to provide validated data on the details of the work completed annually so that this data can be analysed and used for NWG's annual reporting. The project for the first year of the contract will be completed by January 2026 including a period for review of the final report and database by NWG, followed by any required amendments and clarification. Please note: Due to the nature of the project, we require the contractor to be able to deliver the work across all three operating areas, throughout the duration of the contract. This is due to mailing customers in several areas to ensure the target number of properties if achieved. We aim to achieve a minimum of 16,500 visits per year. Based on previous projects and uptake information, it is estimated that we will need to engage with approximately 110,000 over 12 months (based on a 15% uptake rate) via a recruitment communication. This would mean ~9000 customers per month. Please use this as indicative information only, as figures may change due to this project being dynamic and through a new approach.
It is critical that all information relevant to this project and our customers are held securely and separate to any other clients information on a unique database. The contractor is responsible for designing this database, while we request that NWL retains the intellectual property rights. We also stipulate that NWL is responsible for a PR releases relating to this project. Plumbers are to be qualified to NVQ Level 2, plumbing
tradesmen and registered under the National Water Hygiene Car Scheme or hold existing Blue Cards. Reporting is required weekly and should cover analysis of data and work completed (take up rate, product installation rates etc.) Contract start date - 1st April 2025
II.2.5) Award criteria
Price is not the only award criterion and all criteria are stated only in the procurement documents
II.2.7) Duration of the contract, framework agreement or dynamic purchasing system
Duration in months: 60
This contract is subject to renewal: No
II.2.10) Information about variants
Variants will be accepted:
Yes
II.2.11) Information about options
Options:
Yes
Description of options:
The contract will be for 24 months (with 3 month remedial period each year) with a further 36 month optional extension.
II.2.13) Information about European Union funds
The procurement is related to a project and/or programme financed by European Union funds:
No
Section III: Legal, economic, financial and technical information
III.1) Conditions for participation
III.1.1) Suitability to pursue the professional activity, including requirements relating to enrolment on professional or trade registers
List and brief description of conditions:
As stated in the procurement documents
III.1.2) Economic and financial standing
List and brief description of selection criteria:
As stated in the procurement documents
Minimum level(s) of standards required:
As stated in the procurement documents
III.1.3) Technical and professional ability
List and brief description of selection criteria:
As stated in the procurement documents
Minimum level(s) of standards required:
As stated in the procurement documents
III.1.4) Objective rules and criteria for participation
As stated in the procurement documents
III.1.6) Deposits and guarantees required:
As stated in the procurement documents
III.1.7) Main financing conditions and payment arrangements and/or reference to the relevant provisions governing them:
As stated in the procurement documents
III.1.8) Legal form to be taken by the group of economic operators to whom the contract is to be awarded:
As stated in the procurement documents
III.2) Conditions related to the contract
III.2.2) Contract performance conditions
As stated in the procurement documents
Section IV: Procedure
IV.1) Description
IV.1.1) Type of procedure
Negotiated with call for competition
IV.1.8) Information about Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement:
No
IV.2) Administrative information
IV.2.2) Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate
Date:
15/04/2024
IV.2.4) Languages in which tenders or requests to participate may be submitted
EN
IV.2.6) Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender
Tender must be valid until:
31/03/2025
Section VI: Complementary information
VI.1) Information about recurrence
This is a recurrent procurement:
No
VI.2) Information about electronic workflows
Electronic ordering will be used
Electronic invoicing will be accepted
Electronic payment will be used
VI.3) Additional information
Applicants are asked to note that this procurement process will be conducted electronically with all documents and communication being managed through the Northumbrian Water
eSourcing Spend Management portal called 'Ariba'.
Expressions of interest for this tender must be sent to the e-mail address laura.mcmain@nwl.co.uk before the deadline date of 15th April 2024 at 12 noon. Once expression of interest has been received that contains the details below, applicants will be
given access to the Ariba portal within 48 hours from request.
This portal will contain all the tender documents associated with this procurement that are available at the time. An email link will also be provided to the email address you provide to access the portal.
The deadline for return of the completed PQQ is 19th April at 12 noon. When sending expression of interest, applicants must provide the following information:
1) Full company name
2) Main contact details of the person who will be given access to the Ariba portal - Name, job title, E mail address and telephone
VI.4) Procedures for review
VI.5) Date of dispatch of this notice
25/03/2024