Case Study: Department of Education Northern Ireland
The Department of Education Northern Ireland (DENI) was seeking to establish a framework that would be used to deliver a capital programme of works estimated at £650 million. DENI wished to move away from traditional procurement methods that required contractors to tender a price in a competition where the lowest price tendered was selected. DENI planned to develop a more collaborative approach whereby contractors would be selected on the basis of the quality of their offering rather than merely submitting the lowest price. Given the high levels of activity anticipated and in order to deliver more than £600 million of capital expenditure over a four year period, DENI required a process to be developed that could be easily managed whilst not imposing a burdensome cost on itself or contractors.
ChandlerKBS worked with the Strategic Investment Board (Northern Ireland) and DENI to develop the procurement strategy that had been initially produced by others. An important stakeholder was the Central Procurement Directorate (CPD) that is the centre for procurement excellence in Northern Ireland. ChandlerKBS staff from Cardiff co-located with staff at DENI’s headquarters and CPD’s headquarters in order to ensure that the procurement event which we created and managed was run in the most effective and efficient manner possible.
In addition to drafting all Prequalification documents and Invitation to Tender documents, ChandlerKBS developed the scoring mechanism and led the teams undertaking the assessment process. ChandlerKBS drafted the recommendation report and de-briefed all of the unsuccessful tenderers. Throughout the process, ChandlerKBS worked closely with DENI’s legal advisors in order to ensure compliance with EU Procurement legislation. In addition, ChandlerKBS worked with DENI’s many stakeholders to ensure that those technical staff who would have to deliver the programme of work were fully conversant with the new approach and fully supported the changes to traditional methods.
