Westmoreland Supported Housing

The pain points: procuring a critical outsourced repairs and maintenance contract against a fixed deadline

Westmoreland Supported Housing Limited (WSHL) is a housing association providing supported housing for vulnerable adults, managing 646 units across 124 buildings throughout England and Wales. Their mission is to create strong and sustainable supported housing where people flourish.

WSHL needed to procure a new responsive repairs, maintenance, planned works, and vacant property refurbishment contract. The organisation required a fully outsourced service covering both responsive repairs and support for planned works programmes and cyclical compliance requirements. Their existing contract was due to expire in April 2023, making the procurement timeline critical: any delay in awarding and mobilising the new contract would leave WSHL without a repairs service for vulnerable tenants.

Having operated on a series of one-year contracts, WSHL was now in a position to commit to a longer-term agreement. They needed this contract to deliver cost savings alongside measurable improvements to service delivery, while ensuring the procurement was fully compliant with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.

The solution: Consultancy Services: Tender Management

Responsive repairs, maintenance, planned works, and vacant property refurbishment

WSHL engaged Inprova’s consultancy team to manage the full procurement process. This included:

• Drafting a complete tender pack compliant with the open tender procedure under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015
• Developing eight detailed specifications covering all elements of the contract, ensuring WSHL’s requirements were clearly defined and evaluable
• Designing a bespoke pricing model tailored to WSHL’s portfolio and service requirements to ensure the contract would deliver demonstrable value for money
• Managing the tender process through Inprova’s tender portal, handling all supplier communications and documentation
• Supporting evaluation and moderation to ensure a fair, transparent, and defensible award decision
• Ensuring the procurement timeline allowed for full mobilisation of the new contract before the existing arrangement expired in April 2023

The results: 9% annual savings and a smooth contract transition

The investment in designing a thorough specification and bespoke pricing model enabled WSHL to go to market with a clear outline of their requirements and the contractual tools to manage the relationship effectively once established.

9% anticipated annual saving compared to the previous contract, delivering immediate financial benefit that WSHL can reinvest in the quality of accommodation for vulnerable adults

On-time delivery ensuring a smooth transition from the existing contract to the new arrangement with no gap in service for residents

Full regulatory compliance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 for the remaining term of the contract, protecting WSHL from challenge risk

Stronger contractual foundations with eight detailed specifications and a bespoke pricing model giving WSHL the tools to manage contractor performance and hold the supplier accountable through the contract term

“At Westmoreland we had had a series of one year contracts and were in a position to sign up to a longer term contract that needed to give us costs savings as well as improvements to the service delivery. The Inprova team led us through the process to ensure that we were not only legally compliant, but created tender documents that reflected our needs, would garner interest from the market and create a competitive scoring system to help us select the contractor that would give us the benefits that we needed. The process worked well for us and has delivered us the benefits we had identified, and we would recommend Inprova to any organisation looking to maximise the potential from a procurement exercise.”

Tom Hodgson, Operations Director, WSHL