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The Chief Digital and Information Officer gave approval to award a
new contract using the Electronic Communications, Payments, and
Kitchen Management Solutions Framework Agreement (001002)
established by Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation (YPO) to
SchoolGrid Limited for Catering Kitchen Management Solution for the
initial period 4th August 2023 to 3rd August 2029 with the option
to extend for a further 6 years. The total cost of the contract
including any extensions is £1,874,600 (excl VAT). The
decision to award this contract is a consequential decision of the
Key Decision and is being published as Significant Operational
Decision for transparency and is not subject to call in. The
Director of Resources and Chief Financial Officer approved a
decision (D54459), published on 15th September 2021, to enable this
requirement to be tendered.
Following a further competition exercise using YPO Electronic
Communications, Payments, and Kitchen Management Solutions
Framework Agreement (001002), and, in accordance with the
Council’s Procedure Rules, this report seeks approval to
award a Call-off Contract for the procurement of a Catering Kitchen
Management Solution to SchoolGrid Limited for a period of 6 years
with an option to extend for a further 6 years. The maximum
contract period will be 12 years in total if all extension options
are taken. The service has checked with YPO and can confirm that
there is no maximum term set by YPO for call-off contracts under
this framework agreement.
The current operational systems which Catering uses rely almost
exclusively on bulk paper processing which make it challenging to
extract efficiencies and pose an operational challenge of
efficiently managing and co-ordinating a vital service to 170
primary schools located across Leeds employing over 1,000 staff.
Even before account is taken of the financial benefits of
introducing a digital solution, we need to put into context the
existing daily operational challenge. The service has to
satisfactorily meet the needs of our customers (children, parents,
and schools) on a daily basis whilst serving in the region of
32,000 meals every day, with a daily requirement to comply with the
Government’s Food Standards and at the same time minimising
the risk of health and safety non-compliance (especially with
medical diets and food allergies) – this is a complex daily
challenge without the support of an IT platform.
The Council commenced a further competition exercise on 24th
February 2023 seeking bids from suppliers with a view to awarding a
contract to a single Contractor for the procurement of a Catering
Kitchen Management Solution via YPO’s Electronic
Communications, Payments, and Kitchen Management Solutions
Framework Agreement (001002).