Project to carry out benchmarking/market testing on a range of FM services as part of the provider’s PFI contractual obligations.
Tascor require objective and transparent benchmarking of the FM Services they deliver, as part of the North Kent Police PFI Project, to assess and assure ongoing value for money against competitive market pricing. The benchmarking exercise we recently undertook covered each of the services below:
- Cleaning
- Caretaking and Porterage
- Grounds Maintenance and Horticulture
- Public Counter
- Waste
- Logistics
- Property Management.
Taking an open and collaborative approach, we ensured we clearly communicated the timetable, process, specification, and understanding of the contractual and information requirements associated with the benchmarking process and sought agreement on these with Tascor, the Contracting Authority, Project Company and other identified key stakeholders.
An Assured Approach
Using a four-stage benchmarking process (Planning, Discovery, Data Collection/Analysis, Findings/Outputs Reporting), our approach provided a mechanism by which current service prices could be compared to benchmark prices for similar services provided in similar facilities, and with substantially the same contractual scope and risk profile. In order to benchmark on a like-for-like basis, we ensured that the local context was taken into account such as processes, TUPE, obligations, service levels, KPIs and the overall risk profile of the contract.
We didn’t restrict our investigations to desk-top research, we also contacted FM managers of similar PFI and non-PFI assets and PFI/FM managers in other client organisations (prioritising and taking advantage of our contacts in other Police organisations) and ask them to provide data for what they pay for the same services.
Where we encountered any constraints on the availability of comparator data, we ensured that any assumptions (e.g. regarding volume or scope) aligned with the actual service provision and were communicated to and agreed with the Authority.
Results
BPG’s independent approach assured an objective and transparent benchmarking exercise was delivered for the client with outputs including a Review Report.
