Supporting our associate members with their procurement needs

Background

Kingdom Housing Association (KHA) first engaged Scotland Excel’s Flexible Procurement Service in May 2023. They were looking to replace their existing legal services framework which was due to expire at the end of March 2024 and required the replacement to be operational immediately after the expiration of the existing agreement. KHA did not have the staffing capacity required to manage such a complex tender, with multiple bidders expected across five separate lots, so they requested the services of our team to facilitate this on their behalf.

Overview

KHA engaged Scotland Excel under our hosted model. Scotland Excel provides a fixed price based upon the type of procurement required allowing KHA to hand over the full procurement project from strategy development through to award. Our team act as an extension of the contracting organisation’s procurement team, abiding by their standing orders / procurement policy and using their standard documents to ensure familiarity and consistency. Communications between the Flexible Procurement Team and KHA were managed effectively through a single point of contact on each side to optimise efficiency in obtaining information required from the various contributing parties.

What we did

The team managed the procurement process from start to finish by working with key stakeholders at KHA to gain an understanding of what challenges were experienced during the previous tendering exercise, as well as what was working well and those things they would like to improve upon in the active legal services framework. Our team was able to make revisions and improvements in the issued Invitation to Tender (ITT) documents with the framework being split into five lots:

• General Legal Advice
• Property Law & Conveyancing
• Employment Law
• Banking & Finance
• Housing

An open tender was conducted via the Public Contracts Scotland (PCS) portal, with 20 companies expressing an interest. Scotland Excel ensured compliance with all relevant regulations and dealt with all questions during the live tender on behalf of KHA. This allowed tenderers to engage early on the terms and conditions during the live tender, resulting in several changes for all tenderers and eliminating any post tender negotiations related to terms, shortening the clarification stage. This resulted in an efficient tender and award process for the client and the seven companies who submitted bids. KHA had one company bid for all five lots with some smaller companies choosing to bid on specific lots aligned with their area of expertise.

Outcome

The contract notice was published in October 2023. Framework award was completed in February 2024, ensuring the new framework was in place prior to the expiration of KHA’s existing framework at the end of March 2024. Six companies were successfully awarded onto the framework across five lots, with each lot having a sufficient number of awarded suppliers based on the value and volume of the estimated work. The framework will be in place for three years, with the option to extend for a further year at KHA’s discretion.

The contract includes features which save valuable internal procurement resources, including the ability to direct award or conduct capability and capacity enquiries prior to mini competition. KHA have the ability to conduct mini competitions on commercial submissions only, with technical scores from the framework being retained, or to revisit some or all of the technical questions depending on the risk and value of the call-off. KHA have recently re-engaged Scotland Excel to assist with the renewal of their framework for consultancy services relating to new build works.

Testimonial

Calum Kippen, Director of Governance, Risk and Performance for the Kingdom Group, said: “Working with Scotland Excel has been a straightforward experience. The tender was complex and it was reassuring to get support from the experts who are involved with processes like this on a day-to-day basis. Having an external organisation host this exercise for us gave us an additional layer of independence and assurance that we are doing all we can to focus on delivering the best value for money for our customers and behaving sustainably and with integrity. With Scotland Excel managing the tender, it also allowed us to focus our resources internally on delivering an exceptional customer experience.”