Schools' Buying Club - April news

Cleaning up with the Schools' Buying Club!

It looks like Spring has finally sprung and talking of spring, cleaning contracts are BIG news this month with two of our member schools generating some fantastic savings by renewing and re-negotiating terms either with new suppliers or simply by getting a better deal from their current supplier.

Birchwood School in Hertfordshire saved themselves £66,000 over the three year life of their new cleaning contract. 37 suppliers expressed an interest in providing services to them. The Schools' Buying Club whittled this down to seven with price and quality being the two key criteria in choosing the successful supplier. A great result that the school is delighted with.

The Bishops' Blue Coat CE School in Cheshire had an increased requirement for cleaning. SBC took them out to tender with the increased specification and through a well-managed process not only increased the scope but saved the school £6,000 per annum in doing so. That's what we call cleaning up.

In other news Gloucester Schools' Partnership has implemented its own procurement board. This board now runs an Agency Supply Framework meaning that all local schools know exactly how much one another are paying for their supply staff. Not only has this removed the 'distress purchase'nature of engaging temporary workers procurement but it has also saved in excess of £10,000 on temp to perm fees in the first three months alone!

A number of other schools within Gloucester Schools' Partnership have realised over 30% savings on a three year grounds maintenance contract by pooling their budgets and running a competitive tender.

Food for thought!

Harlow Education Consortium (a group of 38 schools) has just launched their local food supply Framework, and again, localism and transparency reigns with member schools seeing itemised food costs. This enables them to make an informed choice to, for example, potentially pay slightly more per item to support the local butcher whilst purchasing canned/commodity type foods from a national supplier.

In the office

Rutherford House School, a new free school opening in September has outsourced all of its back office to the Schools' Buying Club in order that it can "concentrate on getting the teaching and learning right".

Headmistress Gina Nicholson said "We are a small school when we open in September and I need to be part of a bigger buying consortium in order that my school can benefit from collaborative purchasing. The Schools'Buying Club has negotiated all of our contracts for us as they have buying power that we simply don't have on our own. I'm delighted that my 'services' budget is being so tightly controlled and managed, it has already freed up enough money for me to have an extra Higher Level TA".

Potter Street Primary School recently reviewed their current reprographics contract, benchmarking their spend nationally and realising that they were spending more than they needed to. The end result? A £15,500 saving over three years on one machine alone and a brand new, better specification machine in its place.

If you would like any information or have any questions about your school's procurement requirements or any of the news items above please don't hesitate to call Robbie O' Driscoll at the Schools' Buying Club on

0845 257 7050