Summary

Deecon was engaged by Associated British Ports (ABP) to manage the end-to-end procurement of their largest national framework agreement for a projected spend of £400M+ over 5 years. 

This framework required suitable suppliers to design and construct various industrial buildings across all ABP ports in 5 regions of the UK: Humberside, Northwest, South & East England, Scotland, and Wales.  The procurement was regulated under public procurement legislations namely Utilities Contract Regulations 2016 (UCR2016). 

Situation & Approach

As this project was delivered under the public procurement laws, Deecon delivered all elements of its scope in accordance with UCR2016.  Using our knowledge of the construction and contracting sector, we identified the optimal strategy to elicit value and ensure compliance with relevant statutory regulations. 

As Deecon were procuring the supply chain under a framework, the tender was designed to enable efficient and effective contracting over a 5-year period. 

The sourcing strategy was informed by ABP’s spend data, and having identified the procurement lots and forecasted expenditure, Deecon produced the Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) pack.  This included bespoke pricing models, all designs and technical standards issued to tenderers.  Deecon produced two sample projects, which enabled tenderers to provide proposals against a scope of works, which would resemble future projects to be tendered and awarded under the framework.  The ITN pack consisted of 86 documents, each ensuring compliance with UCR2016.

Deecon led the contract drafting process for an amended NEC4 framework contract, working closely with ABP’s internal and external legal counsel.  To ensure that the contracting strategy was suited to ABP’s requirements, we held several Working Group touchpoints whereby the client’s risk-taking strategy was discussed. Deecon also designed an extensive technical questionnaire to assess tenderers’ service-specific capabilities.  

Deecon hosted two rounds of negotiation and clarification sessions to provide detailed technical and commercial feedback. Specific data points were discussed in detail to ensure that all bids were compliant, sustainable, and competitive as possible ahead of suppliers’ Best and Final Offer (BAFO) submissions.

Deecon evaluated submissions from each tenderer, and presented a detailed Final Recommendation Report to ABP.  Our recommendations were based on the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) score for each lot, which demonstrated which tenderers had scored highest against the commercial and non-commercial evaluation criteria. 

Results

Framework contracts were awarded to a total of 11 suppliers for a max of 5 suppliers per regional lot.
The procurement exercise also provided ABP with benchmark prices for over 200 activity rates to cover a range of industrial buildings construction works.

“I really enjoyed working with Deecon on delivering the procurement for ABP’s Industrial Building Framework Agreement. We had the opportunity to be creative in designing the procurement strategy and process to address the specific the nature of this procurement. While this project had its own set of challenges, these were overcome through innovative data-driven solutions and close collaborative working. Deecon maintained a high-level engagement with the tenderers to ensure their most competitive and sustainable proposals were put forward. This was a milestone project for Deecon and ABP both in terms of scale and complexity, and I highly commend the team for delivering it to completion successfully”

— Associated British Ports