Writing wining bids to social housing providers and housing associations
Social housing providers and housing associations are one of the largest procurers (buyers) in the UK. At Tsaks Consulting, we are often working on bids and tenders to housing associations for a range of difference services. It’s an area of focus for our firm and one which we excel in.
We have helped clients write bids and tenders to nearly all the housing associations across the UK including:
- Clarion Housing Group – they are one of the largest housing associations in the UK and release many contract opportunities across a broad range of services. Our team has written many bids to Clarion and are familiar with their procurement process.
- L&Q – Another very large housing association which our team has written bids to for various clients.
- Peabody Trust: They have a strong focus on the London area and procure a range of different services.
- Notting Hill Genesis: They manage over 69,000 homes in London and the South-East. Our London-based team of bid writers have helped many businesses write bids and win contracts with Notting Hill Genesis.
- The Guiness Partnership: They manage homes across England and are a large procurer of services. Our bid writers have written many bids to the Guiness Partnership and are familiar with their procurement templates and buying processes.
- Metropolitan Thames Valley, Hyde Group, A2 Dominion Group and One Housing are also housing associations
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which we have written bids to.
Types of housing association and social housing bids and contracts
Tsaks Consulting has helped businesses from many different industries write and win tenders and bids with housing associations and for affordable housing contracts. Some common services which we have helped write bids for include:
- Cleaning contracts – particularly with providing cleaning services to communal areas. Housing associations and affordable housing operators generally do not provide cleaning services to houses and rooms. However, there are communal areas internally, such as shared lounge rooms and other common areas, as well as external communal areas (such as rear yards and entrances. When writing these bids, it’s important to talk about your experience meeting the unique cleaning challenges in social and affordable housing.
- Grounds Maintenance Bids – an extension of cleaning outdoor areas is the need for housing associations and social housing providers to maintain their grounds. For example, weed management, grass cutting and the management of invasive species. Again, it’s critical to demonstrate experience and expertise delivering similar services in the housing association space where possible.
- Security services – A very common requirement for housing associations and in social housing – it generally covers guarding, community security and general safety. Again, the type of security services and the training and experience of your personal – and how they apply to operating in the social housing environment, is critical to operating in this area.
- Facilities management – Our construction sector bid managers generally help with these bids as they relate to maintenance of fire safety systems, pest control, gas and electrical. It’s also critical that maintenance services and voids repairs ensure compliance with the Decent Homes Standard. This is a central government standard that must be complied with. When our bid writers are writing your bid or tender, we will take the time to demonstrate and showcase your knowledge of the Decent Homes Standard. This gives the buyer the confidence that you are a credible supplier that understands the relevant standards and will help ensure the housing association or social and affordable housing provider complies with the requirements.
What you need to detail and write about to win housing association tenders – winning themes
Resident satisfaction and value for money
We have written tenders and bids for clients to win contracts with housing associations across the UK from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. One of the key themes you need to cover to be successful is service and satisfaction. All of the housing associations want to get the most out of their service providers for the benefits of their residents. They use different methods to track and understand the quality of your services. One of the ways they track it is through resident satisfaction. For example, feedback and complaints are monitored to ensure you provide a high-quality service.
It’s important that when writing your bid or tender, you put forward an experienced, approachable and credible resident liaison team and support the efforts of that team by having methodical and credible communication practices. Talk about your team’s ability to manage complaints, deal with potential issues and troubleshoot them in order to write a high-scoring submission. A win-theme or unique selling point that can be integrated throughout your bid is resident satisfaction.
Processes for servicing and dealing with vulnerable residents are key to winning housing association bids
Another key area is dealing with vulnerable residents. Winning housing associations and affordable housing tenders and bids isn’t all about providing your usual quality services. It helps of course to be a credible provider, whether it be security or cleaning. However, you need to tailor your services to the unique challenges that housing associations face. One of those is dealing with vulnerable residents. Whether it be residents experiencing mental health issues, homelessness or have a disability, you need to show that you have the process and considerations in place to deal with them. Examples of initiatives we have helped clients write about which you may consider depending on the nature of your services include:
- Ensuring personal who speak multiple languages visit certain residents
- Ensuring two person visits to residencies for the safety of your personnel
- Providing training to your personnel on safety and security
- Amending cleaning times to coincide with times that work better for vulnerable persons or provide ease of access.
Writing a bid that delivers extra value!
This is a basic requirement in the Procurement Act 2023 – the need to achieve value for money in contracts. When writing your bid or service, it’s important to demonstrate that you will provide value to the affordable housing provider. A great way to do this is to simply go beyond providing the services requested in the tender and propose to provide value added services. These can be of limited additional cost to you but substantial benefit to the client. Examples of value-added services that we have helped our clients formulate and propose include:
- Performing additional services that aren’t included in the contract scope but will amount in no cost. This is easy to do with security services picking up litter where possible or cleaning service providers being trained on identifying and reporting any security issues.
- Preventative maintenance to focus on whole of life costs. It’s easy to provide maintenance and preventative maintenance services. However, to score more points and add additional value, you can talk about whole of life costs and provide recommendations to housing associations on what products and materials can be used to minimise long term maintenance and cleaning costs.
Showcase your job management system in your social housing bid
Nearly every service provider has some kind of IT solution or job management system which they use and deploy. Sometimes, the relevant housing association with have their own system and will require you to integrate and work within it. This is fine and in this case in your bid or tender, you need to explain how you will ensure you work within their system and that everything will be seamless.
Where you do have your own software or IT platform, ensure you:
- Provide screenshots to show how it works and different stages
- Showcase how the work management system will operate
- Showcase how the association or provider can access the system
- Showcase how work updates and progress will be monitored and be transparent
Ensure you provide a comprehensive response to social value
We have written a detailed guide to responding to social value questions here. In general, when you are writing social value responses for housing associations, you need to keep in mind that they are not for profit organisations (many of the time) and they have a very strong focus on social value and social value initiatives.
It’s also important to understand that sometimes social value has nothing to do with the core services you provide. This may seem unusual, however, with social value representing 10 or sometimes 25% of the total weighting of the tender, it can be a real dealbreaker and it’s important that you score well in this area. Making your initiatives measurable is critical to social value and of course they need to be tailored and relevant. Examples of social value initiatives we have helped our clients put forward include training programs for local vulnerable groups to undertake cleaning courses. This included assisting vulnerable residents to learn about the processes for cleaning and security on their own premises and earn qualifications where applicable. Another initiative is the support of local cleaning initiatives for the local area where personnel and man-hours are donated.
Why engage Tsaks Consulting to help you bid for housing association contracts
Our team of writers at Tsaks Consulting have helped our clients write and win many housing association submissions. We have a strong success rate and experience responding to all different procurement processes including PQQ, SQQ, ITTs, Frameworks and Dynamic Purchasing Systems. We help you win by helping you:
- Write your tender or bid
- Find potential contract opportunities on contracts finder
- Submit and project manage your bid
Contact our team of expert bid writers today to talk about how we can help you win tenders with social housing providers. Our bids extend across the UK from London to Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh, Scotland and across Wales.