Bid race starts for renewal of £750m consultants framework

Procurement body Pagabo has issued a prior information notice (PIN) for the renewal of one of its biggest construction frameworks.

The latest Professional Services framework is valued at £750m and will take over from the current deal when it expires in April 2024.

Pagabo will be holding a webinar on 10 May where interested bidders can find out more about the new four-year framework.

The current deal contains 77 firms across 18 service specific lots in seven geographical regions, including civil, structural and highways engineering, building services, landscaping and building surveying.

Firms including WSP, Pick Everard, AECOM, RSK Environment and Mace have picked-up work on 826 projects under the current framework.

Jason Stapley, chief procurement officer at Pagabo and its parent organisation The 55 Group, said: “Looking at the way this framework has grown over time really reflects the growth journey we have been on as a business.

“The current version of the framework is valued at £500m and has already delivered 826 procurements for clients across the UK – and we expect this to grow even further with the renewal.

“We know that responding to tenders on tight timescales can be a huge stress, so with our focus on how we can improve mental health and wellbeing in the industry we’ve examined how we can adapt our processes.

“With the tender period for this framework expected to fall across the school holidays, we have increased the tender period to 10 weeks to make sure bidding doesn’t interfere with people’s home lives or increase stress unnecessarily.”

A proportion of slots will be reserved for SMEs, which currently account for just over half of the suppliers on the framework.

Stapley said: “SME inclusion goes a long way to ensuring the best social value for communities possible. We know that procurement needs to be social value led, placing the positive outcomes at the heart of the whole procurement process.”

Pagabo will continue to manage this framework on behalf of The Education Alliance Trust which remain as the contracting authority.

To sign up for the webinar on 10 May click here.