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Grounds maintenance contracts are a great way to secure a long-term pipeline of work. Grounds maintenance is a service that is often regularly outsourced by both private and public organisations. This generally means there is a constant stream of contract opportunities.
Grounds maintenance contracts are often commissioned for both labour and grounds maintenance equipment. Contracts could include lawn care, hedge trimming, weed control and more. No two businesses will have the same needs. It’s vital that when writing your grounds maintenance contracts, you customise your response to the needs of the buyer.
If you’re an SME who’s new to the tendering world, it can be tricky to know where to even begin. You might be wondering if there’s any point in applying for contracts when there are larger businesses out there. You shouldn’t be disheartened by this.
The UK government has implemented a scheme to award more work to SMEs. They have a target to see at least £1 in £3 being spent with SMEs. This means that public sector organisations are actively looking to award contracts to smaller businesses. This is great news, and it can be a lucrative opportunity if you’re able to secure a contract. Some grounds maintenance contracts last for several years at a time with the possibility of extension.
Below are some helpful tips on the types of things that are required for grounds maintenance contracts.
Health and safety are important aspects to consider within any tender. Buyers want to be confident that the work on their site is to the highest health and safety standards. You, no doubt, want to minimise the risk to your employees and the general public when working.
You may be asked what risk assessment practices and health and safety measures you have in place. These could be via:
A method statement is a critical part of all grounds maintenance contracts. This is used to detail the way a task is to be completed. It should outline the hazards involved and include a step-by-step guide on how to do the job safely. Your statement should detail what controlled measures have been implemented to ensure the safety of all involved in the task. It must state how employees carry out work in a safe manner to prevent injury to themselves or others.
You will need to include a full list of machinery and equipment to be used within the contract. For example:
Method statements may include how your organisation handles:
Method statements allow you to detail how thorough your business is. It allows you the opportunity to prove why you are the best for the job. You need to demonstrate how you are better than your competitors when carrying out each task.
Your businesses’ qualifications and accreditations are highly relevant. You need to be able to demonstrate that you are qualified to undertake grounds maintenance contracts. Below are some of the general and industry specific qualifications and accreditations you may need:
There’s a great deal of healthy competition when applying for grounds maintenance contracts. Due to this, your level of experience and business capabilities matter. You don’t want to waste resources and time on tenders that your organisation has no chance of winning.
Generally speaking, you will always be required to provide up to three case studies of relevant completed contracts. If you can show a proven track record of projects of a similar stature, it’s a better indicator of capability. You should keep it relevant and include past work that is similar in scale, or geographical location.
You should include past case studies over the last five years, no later. When detailing previous case studies, it would also be a good idea to state any challenges you overcame. This enables you to demonstrate that you have taken the initiative to predict potential challenges and planned ahead.
Social value is ever important. UK government contracts now carry a compulsory 10% minimum weighting on social value. On some contracts, social value can be weighted up to 30% within the quality response. Contractors want to know what steps your organisation is taking to think beyond your own internal objectives. Public sector organisations want you to demonstrate that you’re committed to a sustainable future. Businesses will be impressed if your responses align with their own social value goals.
Social value in tender responses will be assessed on:
As grounds maintenance is based within the natural environment, you will need to demonstrate you have robust environmental awareness. This could include your commitment to using environmentally friendly consumables or strict waste management procedures for example. Can you provide evidence to support these claims? You could try to calculate the specific environmental impacts of your service for the buyer. For example, how much less waste will go to landfill than your potential competitors?
Ultimately, your business should be committed to reducing any negative environmental impact. This could be done via:
Contractors are looking for suppliers to deliver a better service to both themselves and their customers. Most grounds maintenance contracts will include questions for suppliers to demonstrate innovative solutions to everyday problems. They want to know what improvements you can deliver over the contract term. You will want to show supporting evidence of how your innovative methods have been used to save previous clients’ money. You could also state how such innovative solutions have delivered better quality.
Such increased interest in innovation and sustainability coincides with the increase of interest in social value. For example, some businesses have invested in battery powered equipment over petrol/diesel machinery in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions.
If you’re bidding on grounds maintenance contracts, you may specialise in landscaping. You may be wondering how to bid on landscaping jobs, and you aren’t alone. Bidding on landscaping jobs can have advantages and enable you to secure a pipeline of work for your business.
Buyers may release tenders for landscaping services that cover a range of work such as:
If you’ve never tendered before, you may be confused about where to begin. Procurement methods can vary, and different buyers will ask for different things depending on their needs.
It is likely that to bid on landscaping jobs, you will need to detail the same information above. This includes your business’:
Below are some more things that you can expect to see when you bid on landscaping jobs:
When you bid on landscaping jobs, you may have the opportunity to conduct a site visit. Depending on the buyer and the site, they may be optional or compulsory. However, it will be detailed within the tender documents. Site visits can be greatly beneficial to your bid response. They’re a great opportunity to go and see the proposed working environment for yourself.
It’s strongly advised that if there’s an option to conduct a site visit, that you participate. They allow you to gain an insight into the buyer, accessing information you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. It may even result in you being able to price your services more accurately.
One thing that you can expect when you bid on landscaping jobs is that it is part of a wider framework agreement.
A framework agreement is a multi-supplier agreement used by the public sector to procure a range of goods and services. They are frequently used within the grounds maintenance sector. The length of a framework can vary from a few months, but landscaping frameworks more often run for years. Due to this, securing a place on a framework agreement can be a lucrative opportunity for your business.
Framework agreements are split into different lots. Each lot can either be a specific good, service, work or geographical location. They allow suppliers to apply to be part of a wider contract without needing to supply all areas. The number of suppliers for each lot varies and can be anything from four suppliers for one lot to ten. Suppliers need only apply for the specific lot[s] they specialise in.
Depending on the buyer, suppliers may be able to bid on any or all of the framework lots available. This will be stated within the tender documents and tender specification released by the buyer. If this is an option, a supplier must be able to demonstrate that they’re able to undertake all works. They must have the appropriate capacity and resources to undertake the works across all selected respective lots.
When you bid on landscaping jobs, it’s not unexpected for the price to be weighted more than quality. However, that doesn’t mean a buyer doesn’t care about the quality of your response. In fact, it means quite the opposite. You should always put your all into your quality response when you bid on landscaping jobs.
It’s there for a reason. If a buyer is expecting a 1,000-word response, simply writing 200 words won’t suffice. The same applies to writing a 1,500-word response. Follow the instructions given.
A lot of the time, a buyer isn’t an expert in your area, hence why they’re outsourcing for a solution. They won’t necessarily understand what you’re talking about. So, using laymen’s terms is the way forward.
The devil is in the detail. Buyers are often expecting you to break down your answer and have detailed responses. The best tender responses will include a step-by-step response if they’re asking how you do a certain process. The more in-depth the better (within the word/page/character count).
If a question is asking three things within it, break it up. Make the main points subheadings. This will help both you and the evaluator to signpost you have answered every aspect of the question. Put yourself in the evaluator’s shoes. If you’re confronted with pages of block text you aren’t going to favour it over one that’s broken up. Using bullet points, subheadings, tables and graphs can help.
Make sure you’re adhering to the formatting guidelines within the specification. Contracting authorities can be very strict with this. To avoid being rejected over a small matter, read the specification carefully. Before you submit, make sure you have the correct font, size of the font and anything else they note.
If you follow this advice, you’ll be well on your way to securing your next landscaping job. If you need any support writing your next bid for landscaping jobs – we can help.
Are you new to tendering? Do you struggle to see success from your tendering efforts? If you answered yes to either of the above questions, then you may be interested in our bid writing service.
Our Bid Writers have an 87% success rate. They have over 60 years of experience and are more than happy to help you with your grounds maintenance contacts. Whether you’re a first-time tenderer, or simply need advice on improving your success rate – we can help. We offer four bid writing packages:
The Tender Ready programme takes place over 4-weeks. It’s perfect for those who are completely new to the tendering process. Our Bid Writers will help you with your corporate literature and identifying opportunities.
The Tender Improvement package is for businesses that aren’t seeing success from their tendering applications. Our Bid Writers will assess a tender you’ve written and work with you to improve the content.
Simply send the tender specification to our Bid Writers. They’ll write the responses and even submit it on your behalf leaving you time to focus on your business.
Our Bid Writing Team will analyse your grounds maintenance contract. Through Tender Mentor, they’ll then give you guidance and feedback noting any errors before you submit.
So, you’ve taken all of the above into consideration. Now is the perfect time to start searching for grounds maintenance contracts. We get that you’re busy. You don’t want to be searching through thousands of different websites to find a suitable opportunity. That’s where we come in!
Our goal is to save you both time and money. We do this by manually searching for new business opportunities for you. We then publish them all on our sector-specific Facilities Tenders portal.
You can search for new opportunities via keyword, location or budget. This means you don’t have to rely on incorrectly labelled CPV codes. This allows you to access all private and public grounds maintenance contracts easily.
We’ll even send you daily alerts when new grounds maintenance contracts are released. You’ll have 24-hour access to the portal and a dedicated Account Manager on hand to help.
Below are some past examples of ground maintenance contracts and landscaping jobs we’ve sourced on our portal:
GB-Consett: Landscaping and Grounds Maintenance
Durham Aged Mineworkers Homes Association- North East- Budget: £500,000
06-01-2021
Grounds Maintenance Service
NHS Golden Jubilee- Scotland- Budget: Undisclosed
22-01-2021
Leaseholder Grounds Maintenance
Accent Housing- Yorkshire and Humber- Budget: Undisclosed
19-01-2021
Pickering & Ferens Homes – Grounds Maintenance
Pickering & Ferens Homes- Yorkshire and Humber- Budget: Undisclosed
18-01-2021
Grass Cutting and Landscape Maintenance Contract
Hjaltland Housing Association Ltd- Scotland- Budget: £105,000
15-01-2021
Adam & Eve Hard Landscaping
University of Winchester- South East- Budget: Undisclosed
Barcud – Landscaping 2021-2022
Barcud Cyf- Wales- Budget: Undisclosed
Land West of Woodhouse Lane, Hedge End: Construction of Natural Turf Sports Pitches, Footways and Landscaping
Eastleigh Borough Council- South East- Budget: Undisclosed
Landscaping Project Phase 1 at St Peter’s Garden
Chalfont St Peter Parish Council- South East- Budget: Undisclosed
Landscaping Services – Lot 3 Argyll and the Islands
Highlands and Islands Enterprise- Scotland- Budget: £101,250
We also track opportunities for the following sub-sectors:
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