After a comprehensive procurement process, South-West London housing provider RHP Group has announced the Preferred Bidders for two important repairs and compliance related contracts.
The organisation currently has a long-standing repairs and empty homes contract with Mears and their gas and compliance contract with Robert Heath Heating — both of which are due to expire in 2023. Because of this, it was necessary for RHP to procure new contracts for the provision of these services.
RHP has subsequently competitively tendered these long-term contracts using a procurement process compliant under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (because of its value), and has now chosen their Preferred Bidders as follows:
- Contract one (Repairs, Voids and Planned Works): Kier
- Contract two (3 star Gas, Gas & Electric Compliance): Smith & Byford
These two contractors came out top, when assessed against a robust set of criteria including: quality, contract delivery, resourcing, IT systems, cost and social value.
As well as a number of senior and operational employees from RHP being involved in the scoring, a selection of RHP residents were also involved at every stage of the process in order to ensure the customer voice was listened to as part of the selection.
Lucy Graley, Executive Director of Customer Services at RHP Group, said: “We’re excited to start working with Kier and Smith & Byford. Both organisations stood out in the procurement process due to their passion for customer service, the quality of what they deliver and alignment with our values and culture. We see these new contracts and working relationships as an opportunity to build on and improve our service. I’d also like to extend my thanks to everyone who has worked with us over the years from Mears and Robert Heath Heating for all their hard work and commitment.”
Both contracts are for 10 years starting in June 2023 with an option to extend for a further five years from October 2033 to give a total 15-year contract term.
Iain Roy, Operations Director at Kier Places, commented: “We’re really proud to create this partnership with RHP, supporting their large-scale improvement plan for residents in South-West London. A firm focus on quality, building safety, and community engagement underpins everything we do at Kier Places, and we’ll use our extensive experience of working safely in people’s homes. We will work collaboratively with RHP to deliver improvements to homes, including making them more energy-efficient, as well as delivering wider benefits to the local community through our social value commitments.”
Will Smith, Managing Director at Smith and Byford said: “We’re truly excited to have the opportunity to build a successful, long-term partnership with RHP. As a family run, local business this is an exciting time for S&B and we’re proud to be collaborating with such a passionate, forward-thinking organisation. We look forward to working with RHP and Kier to deliver quality, customer focused services over the term of the contract.”
All three organisations have now started contract mobilisation which will run until 31st May 2023. During this period RHP will work closely with the preferred contractors, to ensure they are ready to deliver services from 1st June 2023.
