3.3 Market testing has improved the competitiveness of the Prison Service. For example, in 1999 the in-house team beat the incumbent, Group 4, to win the contract to manage Buckley Hall. Two years later, UKDS lost Blakenhurst to the in-house bid.25 In the case of Blakenhurst, the winning public sector bid was 10 per cent lower than the cost of the bid submitted by UKDS. It was also ranked first in terms of the quality of its operational proposal. When the right to manage Manchester under a SLA was re-competed in 2001, the existing in-house team won the competition against UKDS, Premier, Securicor and Group 4.
3.4 An important feature of the public sector bids has been the active participation of the Prison Officer's Association (POA) in the bidding process. For example, the 2001 Manchester in-house bid saw the POA agree to a significant reduction in staffing levels. Prior to the bid there were 934 staff in place although when we visited in July 2002, we were informed that this number had been reduced to 710. It would be difficult to see such a bid being successful without the adoption of flexible staffing structures.
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25 Premier and Securicor also submitted bids.