Invitation to Tender for Peabody Customer Survey Services Contract

Tender Submission Closing Date and Time: Thursday 8 January 2015 at 17:00 hrs

Invitation To Tender (ITT) Document

Contents

1. Introduction & Information- Peabody Background

- ITT Specific Requirements

- ITT Rules and Governance

2. General Scope of Requirement- Overview

- Satisfaction Monitoring within Peabody

- Purpose and Objectives

- Current Approach

3. Preparation of Tender & Submission of Proposals• Programme Timetable

4. Procurement Process - Tender Process

5. Evaluation- Detailed Evaluation Methodology

- Selection Criteria

- Scoring Principles

6. Weightings- Qualitative Scoring Sub-sections

7. Questions- General Guidance

Appendices

- Appendix A- Section 1 Administrative information

- Section 2 Business Probity

- Section 3 Economic and Financial Standing

- Section 4 Insurances

- Section 5 Health and Safety

- Section 6 Equality and Diversity

- Section 7 Environmental

- Section 8 Data Protection and Privacy

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- Appendix B – Section 9 Qualitative Questions- Appendix C – Section 10 Cost and Financial offer/Pricing matrix - Appendix D – Form of Tender.- Appendix E – Data Protection agreement- Appendix F – Confidentiality agreement- Appendix G – Anti-collusion certificate- Appendix H – Section 23- Appendix I – Peabody Standard Services Contract- Appendix J – Service Level Agreement- Appendix K – Survey Scripts- Appendix L – Reference template- Appendix M – Checklist of documents to be included in written submissions

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1.0 Introduction & Information

1.1 Peabody background

Peabody is one of the oldest and largest housing providers in London. The Peabody Group includes Peabody, CBHA and Gallions, which are all registered providers of social housing with the Homes and Communities Agency. Peabody is also a member of the National Housing Federation.

The Peabody Group owns and manages more than 27,000 homes across London, housing around 80,000 residents. We also run an extensive range of community programmes.

Peabody’s four key business objectives are:

To provide great services and quality homes To build thriving communities To achieve influential growth To achieve business excellence

Our mission is to make London a city of opportunity by ensuring as many people as possible have a good home, a real sense of purpose and a strong feeling of belonging.

1.2 ITT Specific Requirements

Included within this ITT document pack is a section which presents questions which require either a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ confirmation, detailed written responses and, where requested, documentary evidence verifying the answers provided.

Unless specifically requested and appropriately referenced appendices will not be considered in the marking process.

Do not submit unsolicited material, as this will not be considered, and could result in your bid submission being removed from the tendering process.

Font should be Arial, 12 point font as a minimum visible size to ensure legibility.

Peabody does not wish to be overly prescriptive in how the Tenderers approach each section of questions raised. However, for clarity and to ensure consistency when the selection team evaluate the submissions, Tenderers must structure their responses in accordance with the instructions and questions contained within this ITT document.

All sections and questions must be completed as a minimum; failure to do so may disqualify your response from further consideration in this process. Qualification of any part of your submission may result in that part being disqualified from the scoring matrix and inclusion in further stages of this tender process.

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It must be stressed that this is not just a tender exercise and all responses will form the basis of any future Contractual Agreements should Tenderers prove successful and are appointed to deliver the services. Steps may be taken to confirm the validity of the information provided; documentary proof and contact details must be made available where appropriate or when specifically requested.

1.3 ITT Rules and Governance

Confidentiality and Freedom of information

As a housing association Peabody is not strictly subject to the freedom of Information Act 2000 but in line with guidance from the HCAC (previously the Housing Corporation), we will try to be as open as possible and provide information to 3rd party applications, thus complying with the spirit of the Act.

Therefore, nothing in the Contract shall prevent Peabody from disclosing any information whether relating to the Contract or the Services or otherwise which Peabody in its absolute discretion considers it is required to disclose in order to comply with FOIA or other statutory requirements whether or not existing at the date of the Contract and Peabody reserves the right to make such disclosure without reference to the Contractor.

If Peabody shall at any time notify the Contractor that it has received a request for information in respect of which Peabody requires the Contractor's assistance then:-

(a) The Contractor shall at its own cost provide and procure that its sub-contractors provide all necessary assistance required by Peabody in order to allow Peabody to comply with the request for information within the period that it is obliged to respond;

(b) Without limitation to the foregoing the Contractor shall at its own cost within 5 working days of request supply and procure that its sub-contractors supply to Peabody such information and documents requested by Peabody in such form as reasonably prescribed by Peabody; and

(c) The Contractor shall ensure that all information produced in the course of the Contract and/or the Services is retained for disclosure and shall permit Peabody to inspect such records as required from time to time.

In the event that the Contractor shall at any time receive any request for information relating to the Contract and/or the Services then:-

(a) The Contractor shall supply the request for information to Peabody within 2 working days of receipt; and

(b) Peabody shall be responsible for determining in its absolute discretion as to whether such information is obliged to be disclosed; and

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(c) The Contractor shall not respond to the request for information or disclose any such information without the prior written consent of Peabody (such consent not to be unreasonably withheld).

Disclaimer

Nothing contained in this document or in any other communication associated with this process, made between Peabody and any other party, shall be taken as constituting a contract, agreement, warranty or representation between Peabody or its partners and any party (excluding any formal award of contract made by Peabody or any formal express legal agreement).

Peabody and its advisors accept no liability to pay for any quotation or other preparatory work undertaken in connection with this document or any other communication between Peabody and any other party.

Whilst this documentation has been prepared in good faith, it is not purported to be comprehensive, or to have been formally verified.

Neither Peabody nor any of its staff, agents, members, or advisors accepts any liability or responsibility for the adequacy, accuracy or completeness of any information given. Neither do they make any representation or give any warranty, express or implied, with respect to this document or any matter on which it is based (including, without limitation, any financial details). Any liability is therefore expressly disclaimed.

Peabody is not committed to any course of action as a result of issuing this document. In particular Tenderers should note that Peabody may not accept any proposal if Peabody so decides.

The fact that the Tenderers have been invited to submit responses to this ITT does not necessarily mean that they have satisfied Peabody regarding all matters raised.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Tenderers have been invited to bid, Peabody makes no representations regarding your financial stability, technical competence or ability in any way to carry out the project. The right to return to any matter raised in submissions as part of the formal ITT evaluation process is hereby reserved by Peabody.

Collusion

Any Tenderers who directly or indirectly canvasses any member, or officer or employee of Peabody or its advisors, concerning the ITT documentation or process, or who directly or indirectly obtains or attempts to obtain information from any such person mentioned above concerning any other Tenderer will be disqualified from the bidding process entirely.

Publicity and Contact

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Tenderers, either directly or indirectly, must not make any public statements or undertake any promotional activities relating to this document or in general without the prior written approval of Peabody.

Peabody will not enter into discussions regarding the content or implications of this ITT documentation, all queries should be sent as described earlier.

Representations and Warranties

No warranties or representations, express or implied will, or can, be given with respect to any matters in connection with the provisions referred to this document, or any other matter on which they have been based.

Tender Open Period

The tender bid submission shall remain open for acceptance for a period of 120 days from the closing date for the receipt of tenders.

2.0 General Scope of Requirement

Overview

Peabody is inviting tenders from research agencies to carry out customer feedback research. The contract will be for 3 years, with an option to extend it for a further two twelve months periods, to a maximum 5 year contract term.

The successful Tenderer will undertake our annual general satisfaction survey and monthly surveys for key service delivery areas which currently cover responsive repairs, the customer contact centre (Peabody Direct), gas servicing, complaints, anti-social behaviour (ASB), the Quality Homes programme, and lettings.

Satisfaction monitoring within Peabody

Our customers are at the heart of all we do and we continually aim to improve the services we provide. In order to do this it is essential that we capture customer feedback and opinion in a robust and timely manner. We have identified the key service delivery areas that should be measured in order to monitor and track performance.

Purpose & Objectives

The intention of this research is to provide us with insight into our customers’ experience of the services we provide. This valuable information will help inform service and product improvements.

The objective is to analyse and improve customer satisfaction, with the outcome being that we can shape our services to tailor to our customers’ needs.

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We intend to conduct monthly and annual surveys through a combination of telephone and online customer satisfaction surveys for all our key service delivery areas.

The surveys were created in partnership with our existing supplier and although it is important that we maintain an element of consistency, we would welcome input from the successful supplier to ensure the research programme provides good value for money to the business.

We expect the monthly surveys to be completed within one month following receipt of data from Peabody. This is to ensure we can gather feedback from residents as soon as possible following their service experience. and meet the requirements of the business reporting key performance indicators.

It is essential for us to report findings on a monthly and quarterly basis. Our preference is to receive results using “real time” solutions, such as an online portal, including the date and time that each survey was conducted.

It is important to us to efficiently respond to our dissatisfied residents. In order to address service deficiencies we require details of dissatisfied residents who have consented to be contacted to be provided to us within 24 hours.

As a minimum we would expect to be able to breakdown the survey results by fields we provide, e.g. e.g. by contact type, staff member or contractor. We would be interested in any further analysis that can be provided that would add value to our research.

Diversity monitoring will be an aspect of our continuous monitoring and where this information is available we will provide it in the sample. As part of a wider programme to keep the data on our residents up to date, we may ask the supplier to capture missing information on diversity as part of their surveys and import the information back into our CRM system (QL).

In building a representative sample, suppliers will be expected to pay due attention to the tenant profile for example:

Property type Geographic coverage by region, local authority and neighbourhood Tenure type Equality & diversity information Age

We have a minority of residents who do not speak English as their first language. Where this is known, details of their preferred spoken language will be provided with the sample. We would be interested in working with the supplier to explore ways to communicate with our residents in their preferred language.

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We would also like to be able to benchmark our performance with other social landlords if possible.

Current Approach

Our telephone surveys are currently conducted by an external research company. We conduct about 1330 resident interviews each month, as well an annual general customer satisfaction survey interviewing a representative sample of around 2000 residents.

The table below gives an example of our current sample sizes. These may vary from month to month based on availability, but sufficient interviews should be conducted each period to ensure a statistically robust sample is achieved.

Service Area

Monthly Sample Sizes

Annual Sample Sizes

Total Contract term including

possible extensions

Responsive Repairs 850 10200 51000

Gas Servicing 50 600 3000

Peabody Direct 200 2400 12000

Complaints 45 540 2700

Anti-social Behaviour 65

780 3900

Lettings 40 480 2400

Quality Homes 80 960 4800

Annual Satisfaction N/A 2000 per year 10000

TOTAL 89800

3.0 Preparation of Tender & Submission of Proposals

3.1 Peabody may (in its absolute discretion) prior to the date for submission of Tenders, issue amended Tender Documents to Tenderers. Any amended Tender Documents will be issued as soon as reasonably practicable and will be deemed thereafter to replace any such Tender Documents previously issued to Tenderers. Peabody will consider whether the issue of any such amended Tender Documents affect the indicative timetable or tendering process in general and may make such changes to the timetable or process (in its absolute discretion) as it considers appropriate.

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3.2 The Tenderer shall be deemed to have satisfied itself before submitting its Tender as to the accuracy and sufficiency of the prices and/or rates stated in the Tender document and any other pricing document forming the Procurement Document Pack shall (except in so far as it is otherwise provided in the Contract) cover all obligations under the Contract and shall also be deemed to have obtained for itself all necessary information as to risks, contingencies and any other circumstances which might reasonable influence or affect its Tender.

3.3 Instructions for the Submission of Tender Proposals:-

Completed Tenders with attachments are to be returned by way of one hard copy in a clearly indexed lever arch file clearly labelled with the name of the company, and the wording “Invitation to Tender for the Peabody Customer Survey Services Contract” In addition we require an electronic copy of the completed Tender together with attachments on a Memory stick.

The hard copy and the electronic copy of the fully completed ITT together with attachments must be returned in an envelope marked “Strictly Private and Confidential” to:

Peabody Customer Survey Services Tender,

FAO Company Secretary,

Peabody,

45 Westminster Bridge Road,

London,

SE1 7JB.

and received by no later than 17:00 hrs on Thursday 8 January 2015.

ITT Submissions / Responses to Questions (Tenders), will not be accepted after 17:00pm on this date.

Please ensure that the envelope referred to above does not bear any name or mark by which the applicant can be identified.

3.4 Tenderers must submit their responses to question sections in the chronological sequence set out therein and utilising the relevant reference number for each response. Failure to follow the sequence and referencing of the relevant sections may result in your bid being rejected from the tender process.

3.5 Any and all queries must be submitted via tender.contracts@peabody.org.uk by close of business on 23 December 2014 addressed for the attention of Annika

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Karabanova and titled Customer Survey Services tender. No other e-mail addresses or media will be valid for ITT queries, clarifications and submissions.

There is no obligation for Peabody to respond to requests for clarification and Peabody is unlikely to do so if it believes that the ITT is sufficiently clear, however, where Peabody does feel that a question requires clarification then both the question and the response will be posted on a web-page at the following address:

http://www.peabody.org.uk/tendersurveyclarifications

Tenderers are advised to check this page regularly for updates. Queries will be deemed to be generic unless clearly stated. Please note that Peabody reserves the right to circulate all or part of the information generated to respond to queries to all other tendering organisations.

3.6 Tenderers shall have no claim whatsoever against Peabody for any costs and/or liabilities arising as a result of preparing and/or submitting a response to this invitation to tender.

3.7 Programme timetable

The indicative Programme timetable in this procurement process is intended to be as follows, although, Peabody may, at its own discretion, amend this timetable to suit its own operational requirements:

Key Task/Action Key Dates

Invitation to tender Friday 14 November 2014Deadline for tender submissions Thursday 08 January 2015 at 17:00Selection of tenderers for portal demonstration and clarification session

Tuesday 03 February 2015

Selection of successful Tenderer Friday 13 February 2015End of standstill period Tuesday 03 March 2015Contract start date Wednesday 04 March 2015

4.0 Procurement Process

4.1 Tender Process

Peabody are undertaking this procurement under the Open procedure set out in the EU Consolidated Directive 2004/18, as implemented by the UK Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (SI 2006 No 5) (as amended) (the EU Regulations).

4.2 Parties wishing to submit bids must download ITT documents from http://www.peabody.org.uk/tendersurvey

5.0 Evaluation

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All compliant submissions will be subject to a detailed evaluation.

Peabody reserves the right to seek further clarification of submission elements as considered necessary in order to ensure that the most appropriate service delivery partner is selected.

Peabody is seeking to engage with organisations which keep to their word, deliver on time, within agreed spend parameters and at a qualitative level which either meets or exceeds organisational expectations.

The composite parts of the single stage tender are as follows:

Section Contents Pass/Fail

Scored

For Info

One Administrative information √

Two Business Probity √

Three Financial Standing √

Four Insurances √

Five Health and Safety √

Six Equality & Diversity √

Seven Environmental √

Eight Data Protection and Privacy √

Nine Qualitative questions and references

√

Ten Cost and financial offer/Pricing Matrix

√

Appendix D Form of Tender √

Appendix E Data Protection agreement √

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Appendix F Confidentiality agreement

√

Appendix G Anti-collusion certificate √

Appendix H Section 23 √

Appendix I Peabody Standard Services Contract

√

Appendix J Service Level Agreement √

Appendix K Survey Scripts √

Appendix L Reference template √

Appendix M Checklist of documents to be included in written submissions

√

Tenderers are required to meet the above listed requirements in full in order for their submission to be considered.

Pass/Fail questions reflect the minimum standards and/or thresholds Peabody has set.

Only those tenderers passing sections 1-8 inclusive will progress to the scored quality and financial offer evaluation.

Tenderers ranked within the top three Tenderers following the mandatory requirements and Quality/financial evaluation will be invited to support their written submissions with a demonstration of their online portal and a clarification session interview.

The overall weighting for evaluation of scored sections of this tender shall be:

Qualitative question and references 50% Cost and financial offer/Pricing Matrix 30% Demonstration and clarification session 20%

5.1 Detailed evaluation methodology

The evaluation will be conducted in four parts:

Mandatory requirement

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Sections 1-8 are not scored and contain a series of mandatory questions to establish that your organisation complies with the minimum standards of this organisation, and the law in many cases. They are marked Pass/Fail or not awarded marks if classified ‘For information’.

Please note only those tenderers passing sections 1-8 inclusive will progress to the scored quality and financial offer evaluation.

Qualitative questions and referencesSection 9 is a scored section and consists of qualitative questions and references to allow us to assess your organisation’s general suitability to undertake work for us. The questions are set out in Section 9 (Appendix B) where there are also instructions for completing them. The evaluation method for this section is as set out in 5.2 and 5.3 of this document.

Cost and Financial Offer /Pricing MatrixSection 10 (Cost and Financial Offer /Pricing Matrix) is a scored section. The question is to allow us assess the whole life cost of the services proposed by each Tenderer. The question is set out in Section 10 (Appendix C) where there are also instructions for completing it. The evaluation method for this section is as set out in Section 10.

Please note tenderers ranked within the top three Tenderers following the evaluation of all the elements above will be invited to support their written submissions with a demonstration of their online portal and clarification session.

Online portal demonstration and clarification sessionKey managerial and service delivery staff will be required to take an active role in the demonstration of their proposed portal and clarification; however, sales and marketing personnel form the Tenderers organisation will be deliberately excluded.

Following the evaluation of all elements of Tenderers submissions, including any clarifications Peabody shall select a preferred Tenderer or preferred Tenderers for the provision.

5.2 Selection Criteria .

The scoring sections of this Tender will consider the following when evaluating and scoring bids. Tenderers should note that the below list is not exclusive but shall be used in tandem with Peabody’s internal policy requirements and scoring criteria set out in the relevant sections forming this tender document pack.

Compliance with the minimum standards of this organisation, and the law in many cases;

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The financial and risk considerations which may impact the Service Provider’s ability to perform the contract and/or have an adverse effect on Peabody as an organisation;

Compliance with the General Scope of Requirement and the objectives, which demonstrate an understanding of what is required by Peabody and general suitability to undertake work for us

Quality of the services verified by two references. The whole life cost of the services proposed by each Tenderer. Quality of portal offering.

5.3 Scoring Principles

Each Tender submission and supportive evidence will allow Peabody to undertake both qualitative and quantitative evaluations.

These will be evaluated using scoring and weighting techniques which will enable Peabody selection team to compare the best value and financial offers supplemented with the other Qualitative benefits of the submissions. All these will then inform the selection model.

The qualitative information submitted by Tenderers will be evaluated and scored in accordance with the principles set out below:

Score Scoring Principles

0 Response is unacceptable or non-existent, or there is a failure to properly address aspects of the question posed.

1 - 25 Poor – The response is deficient in certain areas and requires the reviewer to make assumptions.

26-50 Satisfactory – The response is acceptable and addresses each element of the question.

51-75 Good – The standard of response addresses each element of the question providing comprehensive detail in some but not all areas.

76-100 Outstanding – The standard of response exceeds expectations.  The response addresses each element of the question in comprehensive detail.

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References are required as part of the ITT and Peabody or its agents will contact referees as part of the ITT assessment. By insertion of their names in Section 9– ITT, Appendix B, you give your permission to us to approach your referees. The referees will be requested to rate different aspects of customer survey services provided by your organisation in accordance with the principles set out below:

Score to enter Description

1 Poor2 Satisfactory3 Good4 Excellent

A maximum of 5% can be achieved for one reference and a maximum of 10% for two references. 5% weighting will be applied to the total score received for each reference, e.g. total mark 30 would receive a score 3.75 being 25% cheaper than the maximum.0 score will be awarded for references not received by the set deadline.

Please see Appendix L for details of the reference template.

6.0 Weightings

Qualitative scoring sub-sections

Each of the scored sections carry a weighting to be applied in the scoring matrix. These have been allocated by the selection team and are shown below.

Scored Questions / Headings % Weighting

Section 9

- Experience and Approach 20

- Information and Reporting 20

- References 10

Section 10 - Cost and Financial offer 30

Combined overall Quality/Cost and Financial offer 80

Product demonstration and interviews 20

Total score 100

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7. Questions

General Guidance

Please give your responses to the following nine sections and multiple questions contained herein. The Peabody evaluation panel will assess and evaluate your responses using the detailed evaluation methodology and scoring principles as set out in this document.

Please read the whole document carefully before attempting to complete it. All questions must be responded to as a minimum and supporting information and evidence must be supplied where appropriate or requested.

Responses should be full and complete and as accurate and concise as possible, supported by examples with an evidence-based approach to previous delivery of the services required.

Where applicable responses should be provided within the spaces provided in this document.

Questions must be answered in English and any financial values should be stated in pounds sterling exclusive of VAT.

You must complete all of the questions even if you have previously given Peabody information about your company in a previous PQQ and/or ITT etc.

Failure to provide the requested responses and/or information and or reports/certification set out and requested in this document and where indicated as Pass / Fail will result in your tendered bid being eliminated from the tendering process.

The provision of false or misrepresented information could result in your Tender being rejected.

Tenderers are reminded to omit marketing or corporate literature when preparing their responses, since any and all text considered marketing or corporate literature will be ignored. Similarly, any supporting and supplementary information provided as examples or as appendices, need to be relevant to the requirement.

Tenderers applying should structure each of their responses to focus on the purpose and objectives of the requirement in context if and when appropriate.

Although your response to this document will be treated confidentially it may become subject to the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and information provided may be subject to disclosure in response to such a request.

The Peabody Group reserves the right to seek independent financial and market advice to validate information supplied or to assist in the evaluation.

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If the application is being made as part of a consortium questions should be answered on behalf of each company to the consortia.

Please note that whenever used in this document the term "organisation" or “company” includes: sole proprietor, partnership, LLP, incorporated company, co-operative, or voluntary organisation as appropriate.

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