Case Studies

Havering Council
Strategic procurement partner

Schools’ Buying Club is the strategic procurement partner for Havering Council. It advises, adds capacity to the internal team at the Council and helps deliver with hands on support. Recently Schools’ Buying Club has put eight new frameworks in place for Havering Council including cleaning, security, telephony, small building works, waste management, MFDs (Multi-functional devices), EAP (Employee Assistance Programme) and educational supplies.

“Through their methodical and painstaking approach, SBC’s professional input over the past three years has made a significant difference in ensuring that we continue to provide a robust brokerage service to schools, enabling them to purchase goods and services cost effectively and compliantly. SBC’s willingness and readiness to collaborate in developing our service specifications continues to give us added value in ensuring that tender documents published are comprehensive and fit for purpose. A key strength of SBC is their personnel, they are very knowledgeable and can be completely trusted to deliver results.” Shola Omogbehin, Head of Education Traded Services

Kent Catholic Schools’ Partnership
A regular client of Schools' Buying Club - this time, needing support to procure their cleaning, audit, and statutory testing services

Schools’ Buying Club holds a successful relationship with the Trust having previously procured their catering service, which delivered a guaranteed return of £200k over the 3-year contract for its primary schools and £180k over the 3-year contract for its secondary schools. Most recently we helped to procure their cleaning, audit and statutory testing services.

The academies previously had a range of cleaning providers and in-house teams; the new single supplier contract has been able to deliver a more consistent standard across the Trust which can be managed more efficiently at Trust level. It also gave the Trust the opportunity to introduce the Living Wage Foundation’s ‘Real Living Wage’ across all the academies.

The audit tender process unearthed massive efficiencies for the Trust thanks to its mature status and already embedded financial measures. This led to a vast saving of around £75,000 across 3-years. We initially received six interested suppliers in the statutory testing tender with the successful bidder achieving the Trust a saving of around £400,000 whilst also improving the service delivery through combining testing functions.

“When the Kent Catholic Schools’ Partnership faced the daunting task of re-tendering operations across its academies, it could have found no better partner than the Schools’ Buying Club. Steering us through a complex tendering process and helping us to deliver substantial financial savings and an improved service for our Children and Young People. To anyone in a similar position, I would highly recommend the Schools’ Buying Club.”  Mark Harris, Finance Director

Aurora Academies Trust, East Sussex

The Club managed and implemented a complete outsourced HR & Payroll solution on behalf of the trust across all of its schools. Termly KPI reviews are held with both suppliers in order to keep the contracts on track. The four primaries in East Sussex also collaboratively went to market for their catering. Contract value was in excess of £1m. Successful contract provides enhanced food quality at a lower price to the parents.

Gloucester School’s Partnership, Gloucester

Grounds Maintenance

Six schools in Gloucester saved £105,608 between them by collaboratively procuring grounds maintenance. There is one contract for all six schools which details each of their specific requirements.

Temporary Workers framework

Circa 30 schools are currently using the Temporary Workers framework which gives them access to 9 suppliers in the local area. The framework sets out the minimum and maximum a supplier will charge the school for a particular role, which reduces the opportunity for suppliers to increase prices when a school has an urgent requirement for a temporary worker (a ‘distressed purchase’). The framework does not allow suppliers to charge a temp-perm fee to the school, should the school retain the services of a temporary worker on a permanent contract once the worker has been in constant employment at the school for a 12 week period. This is achieving, on average, savings of 15%.

Bright Futures Education Trust, Manchester

We’ve saved this large academy group in Manchester over 50% on their payroll costs.

Haringey Local Authority
Local authority procurement support

Schools’ Buying Club is now the preferred education procurement partner for Haringey Local Authority. Through SBC, Haringey are now able to offer their schools specialist advice and support across a range of categories, including cleaning, catering and staff absence insurance. This is an exciting partnership, built on the shared values of wanting schools to have access to professionals who can help drive efficiencies, and put in place bespoke contracts that benefit the individual schools.