Recontracting Facilities Management Services for the Aboriginal Housing Office

Aboriginal Housing Office (AHO)
Recontracting Facilities Management Services

The Aboriginal Housing Office (AHO) is a statutory authority established under the Aboriginal Housing Act 1998 (NSW) to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have access to affordable, quality housing in New South Wales. In exercising its principal functions, the AHO is required to:

• Liaise with other government agencies and non-government bodies in the delivery of Aboriginal housing programs and services
• Coordinate Aboriginal housing programs and services with other programs and services that are provided by government agencies (including Commonwealth agencies) and non-government bodies to assist Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders
• Develop priorities for Aboriginal housing programs and services in accordance with the objects of the Act
• Advise the Minister on Aboriginal housing policy
• Develop and implement strategies for the employment of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders in the delivery of Aboriginal housing programs and services.

The AHO Corporate Plan 2017 – 2022 provides an outline of the AHO’s overarching corporate goals, objectives and mission. Each of these centres on the AHO’s purpose of delivering services in an efficient way, to achieve better housing outcomes for Aboriginal families and communities throughout NSW.

The AHO were utilising the Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) managed Asset Maintenance Services (AMS) contract to deliver maintenance to AHO properties. Their contractors were responsible for the delivery of responsive, minor, planned and vacant restoration work to 900+ homes across two AHO housing zones in Northern NSW.

The AMS contract was due to end within the Social Housing Management Transfer (SHMT) areas as of 30 June 2021, meaning AHO would no longer have a maintenance contract in place to deliver essential statutory services.

The AHO was in the process of delivering an EOI (Stage 1 of a two-stage process) process related to this requirement. However, following a Grosvenor Performance Group (Grosvenor) review of the process, it was identified certain requirements under Procurement Board Direction – PBD-2019-05-Enforceable Procurement Provisions (EPP) (https://arp.nsw.gov.au/pbd-2019-05-enforceable-procurement-provisions) would not be met through the procurement process.

As such, AHO sought specialist strategic procurement services from Grosvenor to deliver an open market tender process, meeting all requirements of the EPP, while providing an interim solution to ensure AHO had contract coverage from the 1 July 2021 for the duration of the market exercise and onboarding of a new contractor.

The Situation/ The Challenge/Opportunity the Client Faced

The AHO is a relatively new entity and operates a small procurement function that was under-resourced to deliver a large, complex, high-value and high-risk procurement exercise. AHO does not hold the specific and specialise construction / maintenance expertise or the required accreditation to manage procurement exercises with an estimated value greater than $1.3 million.

AHO can request oversight from an accredited NSW Government Agency, for example, Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC), or the Department of Primary Industries and Environment (DPIE). In this instance, LAHC faced internal resourcing issues and recommended that AHO could supplement internal expertise with specialist procurement oversight through Grosvenor that would satisfy the LAHC oversight responsibility.

The Project

Grosvenor had to deliver two solutions, an interim arrangement to maintain services to over 900 properties and a longer term sustainable Asset Maintenance Services solution to maintenance these properties. Grosvenor provided strategic procurement services to develop, plan and deliver two procurement processes for:

1.      2 x 3-month interim contracts (direct negotiation processes) with incumbent service providers in two NSW Regions

2.      Open Request for Tender process for Asset Maintenance Services on 917 AHO properties in the Northern NSW Region (2-year contract with one 2-year option).

Grosvenor managed both the direct negotiation (interim contracts) and tender processes including the facilitation of stakeholder engagement, finalisation of documentation including internal business cases and procurement plans, tender evaluation / negotiation plans, specifications, contract documentation and internal approvals / reports.

Grosvenor were further engaged to assist with the planning and management of contract implementation, contract management plan and the contractor onboarding processes.

Grosvenor implemented a seven-step process and assisted with Step 6 – Transition In of the new contract during the engagement.

What were the critical findings or conclusions?

Following the project close out, the AHO have executed their highest value contract in the history of the organisation with a reputable service provider that will begin to deliver services after a thorough transition. This will ensure successful contract implementation and a collaborative long-term partnership (potentially four years) for the delivery asset maintenance services.

The AHO now has a scalable documentation set and contract model that can be rolled out to meet future maintenance requirements of additional properties that may be transitioned to AHO.

What output did we leave with the client? 

Project outputs included:

• Approved Business Case for Interim and Open Procurement processes
• Approved Specification (Statement of Requirements) for Asset Maintenance Services
• Executed Contracts for Interim Agreements to close out / termination notification for both contracts
• Executed contract for Asset Maintenance Services Contract
• A contract model and documentation suite that can be used to manage future processes as LAHC transition more property portfolios to the management of the AHO over time.
• Contract Management Plan.

What did you do that was innovative/non-cookie cutter?

Grosvenor was able to split project resources to manage the interim negotiation processes and the procurement process for longer term solution with the required independence to avoid potential or perceived conflicts of interest. This allowed simultaneous delivery of services to meet AHO requirements.

What was unique about this project?

Development of a Land and Housing Specification into a Statement of Requirements to meet the needs of the very different AHO property portfolio, systems and internal processes was key to project success.

The strategic project inputs included the development of a unique contracting and payment model for the consideration of both a fixed service delivery for preventative maintenance and reactive maintenance delivery under a newly developed Schedule of Rates.

The Specification development also included a suite of 20 related Technical Schedules that added to the complexity of the documentation change management and development process.

Ensuring AHO objectives were achieved including a significant increase to Aboriginal Participation of 20% (which is well over NSW Government targets 3%) and an Indigenous Apprenticeship program which was incorporated into the contract for eight Indigenous positions.

The Results – What were the outcomes/impacts of the project?

The management of the interim solutions and open request for management process has met the requirements outlined in the NSW Government Enforceable Procurement Provisions and additional NSW Procurement compliance requirements. The approval of the recommendation to award the AMS Contract to Joss Facilities Management will deliver the following expected benefits:

• Establishment of a reputable contractor that will deliver maintenance to AHO properties in the Northern Region of NSW with the opportunity to build a long-term partnership
• Maintaining AHO’s property portfolio to meet Statutory requirements and tenant expectations
• Providing industry best practise maintenance solutions to the Indigenous community
• The establishment of scalable contract model that can be expanded if required to successfully maintain a larger suite of properties
• Developing Aboriginal participation and employment opportunities for the duration of the contract and beyond.

Results for the client:

The Grosvenor team delivered all expected outcomes for a satisfied client including an executed contract and a new model and framework to efficiently and effectively maintain Aboriginal housing to a high standard.

 

‘The Grosvenor engagement has been exceptional. Wonderful collaboration and second to none in delivering great results. No task was ever too small and always open to exploring other points of view to achieve the best outcome for the project. Would not hesitate to utilise Grosvenor team again’.

– David Jeavons – Senior Project Manager AHO

‘Agree’

Ashley Livingston – Manager Property Maintenance