Leisure Centres Retender Joint Management Project - General Information

Background to Leisure Procurement Project

In February 2010 Cabinet agreed that the Director of Leisure and Environment should commence a competitive dialogue procurement process to identify options for the provision Leisure centres, for a period of ten years commencing on 1 April 2011, a budget of up to £100,000 was allocated to the process.

In July 2010 Cabinet agreed that the Director of Leisure and Environment be authorised to extend the existing leisure contract with Serco Limited for the management of Loughborough Leisure Centre and Soar Valley Leisure Centre until 30th September 2011.

The extension of the existing contact with SercoLimited was to enable there to be a joint procurement through competitive dialogue with North West Leicestershire District Council and Melton Borough Council. This was done to synchronize the contract commencement dates and to maximise efficiency. A joint District Project Team has been established to oversee the process.

To facilitate the collaborative procurement exercise the Council has undertaken a joint procurement to appoint procurement Leisure advisors to the project. Max Associates have been appointed following a competitive tender and evaluation exercise.

Joint procurement also took place through the East Midlands Lawshare framework to appoint legal advisors for this project, resulting in Freeth CartwrightLLP being engaged to advise on the project.

Competitive Dialogue Process

Phase 1

Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (PQQ's) are sent to all parties who express an interest in the project's OJEU (Official Journal of European Union) notice. PQQ's are used to assess and evaluate which applicants will be invited to participate in the next stage of the process.

Phase 2

This is the Dialogue Phase: it enables councils to discuss all aspects of the project with bidders to enable a solution to be reached. This is split into two stages:-

Stage 1 - Invitation to Submit Outline Solutions (ISOS)

The ISOS is designed to allow the councils to assess the strength and suitability of the bidders' high-level solutions and preferred approaches. The solutions submitted are is evaluated on the basis of pre-determined commercial and technical criteria.

Stage 2 - Invitation to submit Detailed Solutions (ISDS)

The ISDS provides additional details to shorlisted bidders and contains a series of questions designed to allow the councils to further assess those bidders. For this project bidders will be asked to submit details fo the following for each Lot:

• A detailed and fully-priced response;
• Operational method statements and;
• A mark-up of the draft Leisue Management Contract and Specification.

Bidders will be invited to pre- and post-ISDS dialogue meetings to discuss specific elements of each council's requirements. A pre-determined evaluation matrix will be used to assess responses.

Phase 3 - Invitation to Submit Final Tenders (Isft)

When the councils are satisfied that tenders are capable of meeting their needs the dialogue phase is closed and the remaining bidders (it is anticipated that there will be two at this stage) are invited to submit final tenders. Those tenders are then evaluated. Once the evaluation is complete a report will be submitted to Cabinet so that a decision can be made on the preferred partner.

Phase 4 - Preferred Partner/Award

Once a decision has been made the contract is formally awarded and arrangements made for its commencement.

Progress to Date

1. The OJEU notice was placed 5th July 2010;
2. PQQs were distributed to the fourteen companies that expressed an interest:
3. Seven completed PQQs were returned by 9th August 2010;
4. Following the evaluation of the PQQs against pre-determined evaluation criteria four bidders were shortlisted;
5. The four bidders that were shortlisted are;

   Fusion Lifestyle
   Serco Leisure 
   Sport and Leisure Management 
   Parkwood Holdings
   

6. Bidders were told if they had been shortlisted on 6th September 2010.  The Invitation to Submit Outline Solutions (ISOS) documents, and an updated version of the project's Information memorandum was issued, with the following evaluation crieteria:

Evaluation Criteria

Tier 1 Evaluation - for all stages

Evaluation Criteria	Invitation to Submit Outline Solution (ISOS) Weighting	Invitation to Submit Detailed Solution (ISDS) Weighting	Final Tender Weighting
All Lots	CBC - Lot 1	CBC - Lot 1
Commercial	40%	60%	60%
Technical	60%	40%	40%
Total	100%	100%	100%

 Tier 2 Evaluation - at ISOS stage

The following criteria (areas for questions) were used at the ISOS stage:

Technical: approach to pricing, managing repairs and maintenance, programming and sports development, partnership and client relationship, customer care, environmental and energy conservation and added value.

Commercial: as prices are not tendered until the Detailed Solution Stage, in this initial stage commercial includes elements such as; approach to risk transfer, TUPE, two tier working and pensions, Utilities, income/profit share, change of law, approach to maximising use of centres, proposed structure of bid and guarantee of performance and capital investment.

7.  ISOS submissions were received by the four shortlisted companies on 4^th October 2010

8.  Following the evaluation of the ISOS submissions against the pre-determined evaluation criteria three bidders were selected to go forward to the  Invitation to Submit Detailed Solutions. 

9.  The bidders were notified on the 1^st November 2010 and were issued with the Invitation to Submit Detailed Solution (ISDS)documents.   

The bidders that were selected are:

Fusion Lifestyle
Serco Leisure
Sport and Leisure Management

Leisure Centres Joint Procurement Project timetable (Word Document, 0.1 Mb)