Prepared for
Brightmoor Cleaning Ltd fictional
Sample tender analysis · cleaning
Cleaning services — multi-academy trust, 12 schools
1Opportunity summary
A trust is consolidating cleaning across 12 schools currently served by three separate suppliers. Award is 50% quality / 40% price / 10% social value. The quality questions centre on safeguarding, staffing continuity through TUPE, and term-time flexibility. This is a people-transfer contract as much as a cleaning contract: TUPE dominates both the pricing risk and the quality story.
Brightmoor's turnover (£1.1m) comfortably clears the financial test, and its existing schools portfolio (4 primaries) is directly comparable evidence. The incumbent for 7 of the 12 sites is expected to rebid.
2Deadline register
| Date | Time | Event | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wed 29 Jul 2026 | 09:30–15:00 | Site visits (mandatory) | Attendance recorded; non-attendance = disqualification. Book by 24 Jul |
| Fri 7 Aug 2026 | 12:00 | Clarification questions close | Ask for TUPE staff list completeness confirmation + pension terms |
| Wed 12 Aug 2026 | — | Final TUPE data & clarification answers issued | Re-price labour immediately on receipt |
| Mon 24 Aug 2026 | 10:00 | Submission deadline | Note the morning deadline — finish the Friday before |
| w/c 14 Sep 2026 | — | Clarification interviews (top 3 bidders) | Ops manager must be available that week |
| 1 Jan 2027 | — | Contract start | TUPE consultation must run during autumn term |
3Compliance matrix — mandatory requirements
| Ref | Mandatory requirement | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| M1 | Public liability ≥ £5m | SQ 4.1 | Evidence supplied — £10m held |
| M2 | Enhanced DBS for all staff on site | Spec 3.1 | Confirmation required — current staff covered; written process for new starters & TUPE transfers needs documenting |
| M3 | Safeguarding policy aligned to KCSIE | SQ 5.4 | Confirmation required — policy held, last reviewed 14 months ago; re-date after review against current KCSIE edition |
| M4 | Mandatory site-visit attendance | ITT 1.6 | Action by 24 Jul — booking window closes soon |
| M5 | Acceptance of TUPE obligations | ITT 6.2 | Standard acceptance — but see pricing risk in §4 |
| M6 | 2 comparable education-sector contracts | SQ 7.1 | Evidence supplied — 2 primary-school contracts, referees confirmed |
| M7 | Turnover ≥ £760k (2× annual value) | SQ 3.2 | Met — £1.1m filed accounts |
4Evidence-gap report
TUPE staff-cost data Unsupported — do not price yet
The ITT's TUPE annex lists 34 transferring staff but omits pension enrolment status and accrued holiday for 9 of them. Pricing labour on incomplete TUPE data is the classic way cleaning contracts go underwater. Submit a clarification demanding the missing fields; price only on the corrected list issued 12 Aug.
DBS process for transferring staff (M2) Customer confirmation required
Brightmoor's DBS process covers its own hires. A one-page procedure for verifying/refreshing checks on TUPE-transferred staff before first shift is needed — the safeguarding question will probe exactly this.
Social value evidence (10% of score) Customer confirmation required
Brightmoor pays the Real Living Wage (payroll evidence available) — that is a strong, true social-value anchor. Local-employment claims need postcode analysis of the current workforce before they can be stated. Nothing else should be pledged without a delivery plan.
Term-time flexibility model Derived from evidence
Rosters from the four existing school contracts demonstrate annualised-hours scheduling through term/holiday cycles — directly reusable as method-statement evidence with client names redacted until referees approve.
5Bid / no-bid assessment
| Factor | Weight | Score | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eligibility | 30 | 26 | All mandatories met or procedural; site visit is the only hard date at risk |
| Deliverability | 25 | 18 | 12 sites is 3× current largest contract — mobilisation plan must be honest about supervision structure |
| Competitiveness | 25 | 15 | Incumbent advantage on 7 sites, but consolidation suggests trust dissatisfaction — probe at site visit |
| Commercial attractiveness | 20 | 9 | 40% price weighting + TUPE data gaps = margin risk until 12 Aug data lands |
| Total | 100 | 68 | BID — conditional on complete TUPE data and booked site visit |
Recommendation
Bid — but treat two dates as do-or-die.
Book the mandatory site visit today (window closes 24 Jul), and do not finalise pricing before the corrected TUPE data on 12 Aug. If the trust refuses to complete the TUPE annex, that itself is a strong signal to walk away.
6Red-team notes — where this bid would lose marks
Safeguarding question: quoting the policy verbatim scores mid-band at best. The top answer walks through a real scenario — new starter, DBS pending, term starts Monday — and shows the control that stops them entering site.
Mobilisation: claiming all 12 sites go live flawlessly on 1 Jan reads as naive. A phased supervision plan with named area supervisors and a week-2 correction loop scores higher because it's believable.
Price: underpricing the incumbent by more than ~8% on a TUPE contract invites an abnormally-low-tender challenge and signals you've mispriced the transferred workforce.
7Submission plan (work-back)
| This week (by 24 Jul) | Book site visit · submit TUPE clarification · start DBS-transfer procedure draft |
| Week of 27 Jul | Attend site visits (photograph access/storage) · review safeguarding policy against current KCSIE · draft quality Q1–Q2 |
| Week of 3 Aug | Draft Q3–Q5 · build pricing model shell awaiting TUPE data · referee approvals for case studies |
| Week of 10 Aug | 12 Aug: final TUPE data → complete pricing · internal red-team against evaluation criteria |
| Week of 17 Aug | Director sign-off Wed · full upload by Fri 21 Aug — never leave a 10:00 Monday deadline to the Monday |
This is what £99 buys — for a real tender
Send us a live tender and get this exact analysis for your business — evidence-checked and prepared from the information you provide — within two working days of us receiving your documents. If the honest answer is "don't bid", we'll say so.
Request your founding analysis →Illustrative sample. "Brightmoor Cleaning Ltd", the trust and all dates, values and documents are fictional; the structure mirrors requirements commonly seen in UK education-sector cleaning tenders. Not legal or procurement advice; no output guarantees any contract award.