The Government of Barbados – independently and in conjunction with other Caribbean states - has for some time been reviewing its procedures for public procurement and has moved towards adopting the UK approach based on the EU Procurement Directive. A suitable legislative framework has yet to be enacted.
ACE were engaged in February 2011 by Innotech Services Ltd - a major Barbadian construction company which had been pre-selected as a bidder for a project being procured by the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) - a government controlled organisation. The project involved the financing and construction of a new 80,000 square metres headquarters building and a 25 year contract for facilities maintenance.
ACE’s initial remit included responsibility for bid strategy, planning for routine preventative and reactive maintenance, lifecycle costing for renewal and replacement of assets, organisation and control of service provision via a remote help desk facility, creating methodology for service provision to meet output service specifications, programming inputs for CAFM data capture and reporting, training and support. We then led the negotiations of the contract through to financial close. This included the financial structuring of the project and the formatting of all the documentation.
We have designed a FM service delivery model to meet the requirements of a non-standard payment mechanism and a fully costed lifecycle plan intended to meet the end of term handover conditions based on a condition related programme of planned maintenance and reactive capability controlled through a CAFM help desk facility. We have also provided strategic input into ISL’s approach to the pricing and management of risks. ACE, post award, was then responsible for the strategy of the project structure and for project managing of the various activities through to financial close.
ISL’s formal submission, which incorporates ACE’s approach to compliant delivery of operational services, was delivered to the BWA in July 2011 and ISL was confirmed as preferred bidder in December 2011. This subsequently transpired into a successful signing of a contract using the structuring identified by us.