Recognising an individual project where a school has worked with an outside agency or local authority to refine its buying practices and increase value to the taxpayer.

2024 Winner: Nexus Multi Academy Trust

Formed in 2016 and currently responsible for around £11 million per annum in non-pay spend for the procurement of goods, services and works, Nexus Multi Academy Trust is just the second in the country to be nominated for the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply Procurement Excellence Program Award. The trust provides guidance and support to special schools across England on how the sector can support flexible working practices This year, an increased commercial focus has achieved considerable savings for the Trust’s fifteen schools.

Commended

Meopham School / Kent County Council / LHC Procurement
Links Academy MAT
OWLS Academy Trust / Leicestershire County Council
Westwoodside Church of England Academy

2023 Winner: Brigantia Learning Trust, Sheffield

Cloud-based MIS systems have the potential to make considerable savings for Multi-Academy Trusts. Brigantia, currently with five academies in Sheffield under its wing, used the Crown Commercial Service framework to select a Cloud supplier which could provide potential savings of up to £60k per year. In one Academy alone, MIS costs were reduced by £34k while Brigtania expects implementation costs to be recovered within a maximum of two years.

Commended
West Sussex County Council
Welsh Government Commercial Delivery team
Oasis Community Learning, London

2022 Winner
Ravensdale Junior School/Transform MAT

Commended
Minerva Learning Trust, Sheffield
Newton Farm Nursery, Infant & Junior School, London
Whickham School & Sports College

2021 Winner
Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council / Revolution

The commercial trading arm of Dudley Council has worked alongside their procurement colleagues – as well as those in adult social care and children’s services - to source, order and supply thousands of items of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The effort across the whole council ensured it was safe for all staff and children to return to schools, colleges and early years providers across the borough when the time was right. Ensuring that the IT provision was sufficient to allow teachers to deliver online lessons, a scheme to distribute laptops and devices to vulnerable youngsters in the borough was devised.

Commended
Bath & North East Somerset Council
Schools Buying Club 
National Procurement Service / Welsh Local Government Association

2020 Winner
Addington School & Wokingham Borough Council

A new 1,000m2 additional facility for Addington School, an Outstanding Special School for children and young people with educational needs and disabilities. The expansion will enable an additional 50 local children with special educational needs and disabilities to be educated closer to home, with the school’s capacity boosted to more than 250 students due to the extra space. Sixty to seventy per cent of the building work for the new block will be completed offsite, helping to keep disruption to the school and its students at a minimum.

Commended

Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys, Kent
Academy Transformation Trust

2019 Winner
Camden Learning

Camden’s schools were clear from the outset that whilst budgetary control was important, it was not to compromise the quality of staff supplied to schools. Because Camden Learning is a schools’ owned company, the procurement process for the Supply Agency Contract was schools-led. One fixed, reduced charge rate for supply teachers immediately reduced the cost to schools and removes the need to negotiate rates each time. Saving on spend is running at over 14 per cent.

Commended

Melbourn Primary School, Cambridgeshire
The project to expand Melbourne Primary School came about in response to plans for a large new housing development. After a feasibility study, the need to redevelop the adjacencies of those existing buildings posed an interesting challenge. The extension has brought a site-wide sense of connectivity to the school, bringing together of three differently-aged buildings. A landscape architect worked on outdoor teaching spaces and the design of a new playground.

Polegate School / East Sussex CC
To accommodate growing pupil numbers, East Sussex CC decided to extend Polegate Primary after accessing Fusion21’s Modular Buildings Framework. The £3.2 million project will provide additional floorspace for a school hall, plus a kitchen, reception office and new classrooms. By selecting a modular solution, the school has benefited from reduced design, labour and on-site costs. The procurement generated increased efficiencies plus greater cost certainty.

Knights Templar School, Hertfordshire
The Knights Templar School in Hertfordshire utilised a respected IT forum to seek advice and expert knowledge on ICT equipment specifically for the school environment. Over the past two years, the school has purchased around 150 refurbished computers, 25 Monitors, an Apple iMac, plus several accessories which has saved around £30,000. The business grade machines are covered by a two year warranty and are a higher spec than schools normally use.

Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT)
Following a strategic review of procurement processes at both a Trust-wide and academies level, the OAT management team decided that essential ICT services were strategic procurement decisions which had to be made and purchased centrally. Instead of procuring these services ‘piece meal’, OAT chose the strategic option of improving and procuring the end-to-end IT requirements of all the academies in the Trust, thus building a robust ICT infrastructure.

2018 Winner
The Stour Academy Trust, Kent

The Stour Academy Trust currently comprises seven schools. In July 2017, it had three external catering providers and two in-house school catering services, all of which were hard to manage. The Trust sought the help of Schools Buying Club to assist as an independent consultant with the tendering process. The three year deal with a single supplier created a saving of £62.5k, with the supplier also investing in new equipment - a considerable saving in the current financial climate.

Commended

Acklam Grange School, Middlesbrough
Matravers School, Wilshire
Walsall Academy, West Midlands
Bradford Grammar School, Bradford

2017 Winner
Ormiston Academies Trust

Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT) is a not-for-profit multi-academy trust, sponsoring over 31 primary and secondary academies, since 2008. Responsible for developing and maintaining a £700m estate, a key strategy has been to ensure value for money through effective procurement practices. OAT was keen to address condition issues and give benefit to its 26,000+ learners/students and teaching staff. Led by a team of experts, the Trust has used a blend of existing procurement routes (such as ESPO/YPO/CCS/CPS) and developed new OJEU compliant frameworks for future use. To date, routes to market have been put in place for annual Gas and electricity savings of £231k; IT Connectivity Services (Voice, Broadband and E-safety) savings of £286k, and; HR and Payroll annual savings of £111k.

Commended

Sutton Vallance School
University of Birmingham

2016 Winner
Prince’s Mead Preparatory School, Winchester - Waste Rebate

At last year’s inaugural Education Procurement Excellence Awards, Prince’s Mead Preparatory School won the ‘Best Overall Results in Procurement’, for its collaborative project in getting over £100,000 back from Winchester City Council for six years of overpayment on waste removal services. This is a great example of a model school celebrating the huge financial benefits of professionalising their procurement activities - as well as the outcomes of collaboratively seeking the ebst financial outcomes for the whole community.

Commended

Coplestone Primary School, Suffolk - Reprographics tender
Acadamies Enterprise Trust - Cloud Migration
Astor College, Kent - Communications Tender