3.8.1 Authorities should consider carefully, at an early stage in their procurement planning, the range of services which need to be provided through the Contract. In particular they should consider whether or not it offers value for money to include soft services as part of the range of services to be provided. HMT has updated its "Value for Money Guidance"57 as a tool to assist Authorities in this decision. This should also be checked in specific sectors. So, for example, it is policy that general cleaning services in Schools PFI are excluded from the services to be offered by the private sector. Where hard services58 only are procured, adjustments will need to be made to the Contract and in particular (a) any benchmarking/market testing provisions are unlikely to be applicable, though some sort of value testing for the Contract could still apply (see Section 15 (Price Variations)), (b) the Sub-Contracting provisions (see Section 16 (Equality Legislation, Sub-Contracting, Employees and Documentary Changes) and Section 9.3 (Replacement of Sub-Contractors)) may need consideration, and (c) Authorities will need to give particular attention to any interface issues which might arise with the providers of other services.
_________________________________________________________________
57 See HMT website www.hm-treasury.gov.uk.