Prices for Council Tender...?

[Jamie Jones]

1 hour ago, openspaceman said:

Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment   whereby all the decent staff move on and you have to take on the staff left behind when you take over a contract

That pretty much sums it up.... 

You are basically taking over the contract of employment they (The employees) have with their old employer (IE You have to employ them as per their old contract)

When you take these members of staff on they might come with long periods of service so you will have to honour they redundancy payments, sick payments, old school pensions (some older government pensions were good for the employees and  some were final salary).

What you also have to remember is that you might only have the contract for 1, 2, or 3 years before someone else gets it. Or they could pull a contract from you early with out someone else taking it over. Where I live the council and the contractor has gone separate ways (I don't know who is responsible for the breakup) and the local authority set up their own department and got their own staff. The old staff with the contractor have just been laid off... So if you are the new employer you could take a hit for paying someone redundancy of for 20 years service when they have only worked for you for a year or so, plus their pension...

It focuses your mind a little when it is put that way.... It is only really the sort of thing that big companies can afford to take one.

[Jamie Jones]

On another note.. I am looking for opportunities to tender for work that is coming up in my area... I have spoken to the councils tendering officer who say that they welcome tenders from smaller local businesses.

But as the conversation went on it became clear that the work was most likely going to be bundled into big chunks (often referred to as a 'Frame Work for' say Grounds Maintenance) in away that only a large company could tender for and in our area that is most likely going to be an outside bidder. This could then bar the local small business from tendering. The reality is that the local councils don't want to be dealing with the small contractors even if they could save a lot of money do so. 

IE you might bid say £ 100 a cut for the job because that is what you would charge.

Where as the Big player might charge say £ 250.00 for the same job. They way they can use their own staff or sub it out to you. There is then extra money for their profit and also money to deal with all the rubbish that come with dealing with the local authority. And there is loads of it.

You might also have to be CAS Registered which is where all your policies (regardless of if they hold any relevance) are up to date and acceptable. It is mainly for for the construction industry... But the council will apply it to you so that they don't have to check your policies. And yes this all costs you money...

There are multiple equal opportunities policies, anti slavery policies, h&S policies, environmental policies, method statements, generic risk assessments, customer policies, employment policies, anti money laundering policies... and what ever else they want that is flavour of the week.... Plus criminal records checks on the contract provider and proof that you can afford to honour the contract financially.

 

You almost have to double or triple your existing fees to do the job to cover everything that is required and factor in the harassment/hassle factor. Many companies under estimate this element and that is why so many companies that venture into local authority or government contracts go bust... And that is all before to factor in the element for cashflow and late, very late or non payment.

 

[openspaceman]

38 minutes ago, Jamie Jones said:

But as the conversation went on it became clear that the work was most likely going to be bundled into big chunks (often referred to as a 'Frame Work for' say Grounds Maintenance) in away that only a large company could tender for and in our area that is most likely going to be an outside bidder. This could then bar the local small business from tendering.

In effect the council offloads the admin and employment responsibilities but the new firm still uses local contractors to do the work, Carillion is a good example.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

36 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

In effect the council offloads the admin and employment responsibilities but the new firm still uses local contractors to do the work, Carillion is a good example.

And the public sector keep drawing their salaries and the tax payer keeps getting hit for the bill....

 

A never decreasing cycle of inefficiency and ineptitude ??

[Jamie Jones]

And the so called spending the money locally is a fallacy as the outside main contract keeps the reward and some people who get employed or contracted are working at base price..... So the local are doesn't keep the reward

[Arb Pro Software]

Tendering for term contracts is not straightforward, it takes a lot of effort just to be successful and then you have to honour the crazy prices you may have submitted for the term of the contract! 

 

In my opinion having gone through quite a few myself and in reverse managed from the council side, you are better off getting in a professional to work with you and guide you through the process. You can and often do, spend weeks putting a grade A PQQ & if successful, ITT (the pricing bit) together. If you are not used to tendering or its new to you, its like when you first started climbing, you didn't teach yourself did you? get some help if this is new to you... 

 

A really experienced individual that specialises in tendering (and there are lots out there) will advise you how to score more points in other areas. you may look at a particular section scoring 5 points and just skim through it, but this section coupled with scores from other sections all add up at the end. An expert in tendering will know the sections that are generic and where you can score maximum or at least your best possible score's. They will give you the tools and probably documents to re-inforce why you do something particularly well. Furthermore and this is important in my opinion, the areas that an expert realises you need help in, can provide documents and policies/procedures to reinforce how you manage something, you can then actually incorporate these new policies and procedures into your business and improve how you operate day to day. whilst tendering is a lengthy process your business can also benefit from an injection of knowledge and improvements in how you manage certain elements of your business too!

 

Whilst rates £ are key! rates still only equal a certain percentage of the overall score. Furthermore if you know the contract and geographic's do some homework on pricing. For example if you are tendering in London you can bet the majority of the work will be reductions and pollards amongst other less required works. Look at what type of works you expect the council to order on a regular basis! For example we have reduced rates for a certain work operation guesstimating the requirement will be very low, whilst increasing rates for other operations that we know will be a more regular type of work. the truth is as you probably already know, if you have good rates for crown lifting for example and there are plenty of street trees,  you can undertake a lot of crown lift in a day! As I said though an industry expert in tendering (Paul Elcoat is one such example) can be really useful when tendering for work ..  

 

Tendering really is a minefield!, my best advice is get some help from an organisation or an expert in our industry that specifically helps organisations with tendering for term contracts. Whilst you may end up spending a couple grand, the experience of working alongside someone that knows what they are doing will really help you. When you get involved in another tender, you will have allot of the documents in place already, as well as using their industry knowledge to help you formulate a pricing structure that works and is sustainable during the term of the contract.

 

To win a long term contract that provides sustainability for 3-5 years will take a few attempts at tendering before you finally win one! For whats it worth thats my experience of tendering for Arb Contracts ....   

 

      

Edited January 14, 2019 by Arb Pro Software