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WQ.327/2020
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR EDUCATION BY DEPUTY J.H. PERCHARD OF ST. SAVIOUR
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 22nd SEPTEMBER 2020
Question
Further to the reports that a contract to prepare meals for 5 secondary schools has been awarded following "a rigorous tendering and evaluation process", will the Minister advise –
- how many businesses made a bid for the contract;
- against which criteria the bids were evaluated;
- in light of the response to Written Question 458/2019 (in which it was stated that an exemption from the procedures for obtaining quotations and tendering was approved for the pilot programme by the then Education Department, Operations and Finance Director and the then Director of Procurement) how it was ensured that the tendering process for the contract was fair for all bidders; and
- why an exemption from the tendering process was sought for the pilot scheme?
Answer
- Five suppliers expressed an interest and two submitted a tender response
- Over and above standard due diligence pass / fail criteria such as insurance cover, financial records and registration with Environmental Health, a range of weighted scored criteria were used as below:
Membership of accredited bodies, including trade and professional, ISO9000 accreditation, ISO14001 accreditation, 3 years of trading history, references and price
Health & Safety statement / policy, staffing and qualifications
Last inspection notes, report or letter from Environmental Health
Previous experience of catering or managing catering concessions
How School Food standards would be met and how staff would be trained to encourage healthier eating principles to students when they are choosing meals
HACCP and training records
How staff will be trained, by whom and to what standards, what, if any, continued staff training is forecast
Procedure to manage staff absence, especially at short notice
Food sources used, including Fairtrade, organic, and locally produced
The number of staff and resources to be employed for each site of this contract including roles, responsibilities and qualifications and who will be on site for the delivery of the contract Detailed Implementation Plan, to include how the contract will be mobilised and how key implementation dates will be achieved
Organisational arrangements to be put in place for this contract, with specific reference to the requirement for a large number of freshly cooked meals to be served in a very short space of time Any initiatives for the marketing and promotion of the catering services for the schools and the food products
Procedure for student, staff and parental concerns and what systems to investigate complaints Systems to monitor and improve performance including staff communication with students, the standard of meals, financial and efficiency of staff
Procedure to self-evaluate performance and what key indicators used to measure this
Evidence all staff working on this contract are paid the Jersey Living wage
Confirmation all staff working on this contract will be DBS checked
Explanation of how all staff compliance with the Safeguarding Children Guidelines will be achieved
Environmental management policy, registration with the ECO-ACTIVE Business scheme, proposed assistance with the school's Eco-active programmes and what environmentally friendly chemicals will be used and how they will be managed
- The tender for the school catering concessions was opened on the Government of Jersey ePortal on Monday 29th June 2020 and closed at 12.00pm Friday 24th July 2020.
Advertisements were also placed in the Jersey Evening Post Gazette notices on Friday 3rd July 2020 and Monday 6th July 2020. The evaluation panel consisted of a team of 12 representatives from the schools, CYPES, SPPP and Commercial Services departments. The commercial services procurement framework was followed and before the tender evaluation all members of the panel signed conflict of interest declarations.
- A three-year exemption was sought to gauge the level of uptake from parents, and to evaluate the benefits for the children across the service. The data from the pilot scheme will be evaluated and used to determine the next phases of the project, one of which may be a full tendering process depending on financial directive thresholds.
This was not a commercial venture and all income generated from the pilot is reinvested back into the scheme for future project development of the hot school meal service.