DESALINATION PLANT 

Everclear is a special purpose vehicle (SPV) set up specifically to undertake this project. The shareholders of the SPV are experienced contractors and developers. The ultimate client was the water authority. The island is classified as a water scarce island and therefore required additional water supplies that were sustainable.

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We were asked initially to assist in drafting and negotiating the water purchase agreement and to undertake the financial modelling. Later we assisted with the project management of the pump tests.

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The outcome was that the water purchase agreement was signed and the pump tests were successfully completed.

STRUCTURING NEW HEADQUARTERS

The Government of Barbados – independently and in conjunction with other Caribbean states - has for some time been reviewing its procedures for public procurement and has moved towards adopting the UK approach based on the UK PFI/PPP model.

We were initially engaged by Innotech to assist with their tender documentation. Having got them to preferred bidder status we assisted in structuring the deal, putting all the documentation in place and successfully negotiating the contract through to signature. Additionally providing strategic input to ISL's approach to the pricing and management of risks.

Once the facility was built we designed a FM service delivery model to meet the requirements of the payment mechanism and a fully costed lifecycle plan intended to meet the end of term handover conditions based on a condition related programme of planned maintenance and reactive capability controlled through a CAFM help desk facility.

The result of our work saw ISL's complete and now operate a successful project.

FOUNDATION TRUST PIPELINE MANAGEMENT

We were engaged as a subcontractor to McKinsey & Company UK to investigate and report on how – if at all – the ability of each of the 23 Trusts to meet the financial criteria set by Monitor and the DoH for transition to Foundation status is being or is likely to be affected by the fact that the Trust is, or is in the process of, becoming an obligor under a PFI contract.

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After submitting a detailed questionnaire we completed a review of the electronic documents, followed by an interview to calculate the impact of the PFI contract on a number of key factors including increased efficiency, cost inflation, adoption of new financial reporting standards, cost improvement plans, public dividends, liquidity and other financial ratios relevant to the Foundation Trust threshold criteria.

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The results in relation to the 17 Trusts with operational PFI projects, the DoH benefitted from having a clear insight into the relative direct and indirect impact of the Trust’s PFI contractual obligations on their ability to meet the threshold requirements for becoming Foundation Trusts. The benefits to the DoH extended to an objective understanding in respect to all Trusts included in the assessment of the effectiveness of contract management and the scope for savings and efficiency gains.

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FACILITIES MANAGEMENT AUDIT AND STRATEGY

We put together a team of professionals with various skill sets to undertake the audit, and then analysed the data to ascertain the status of the current situation. The properties range in ages from 7 to 25 years and are at various states of repair and condition, with the newest having some more serious issues. 

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A detailed report on the current condition was produced, and an FM strategy made and presented to the board resulting in the NIB receiving the information needed to put in place a more efficient and cost effective solution. 

HELP DESK INTEGRITY AUDIT 

Amey is one of the top five support services suppliers in the UK. They employ 16,000 people and have a turnover of around £2.1bn. Amey maintains the UK’s road and rail infrastructure, keeps schools safe and clean, manages the UK’s defence estate, safely escorts prisoners and keeps prisons and courts secure. They also collect and process waste, as well as deliver utilities services.

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We commenced the assignment by reviewing the contractual requirements and obligations of the payment mechanism and summarised these.

We then analysed all the help desk logs for the period in question and assessed each entry against the Service Level Agreement and contract time scales. This analysis was then summarised in a report on the findings to show what actions were compliant with the contract and which were not.

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This resulted in a better understanding of the situation and it's management, and created constructive conversations with the client. 

HOMEOWNER SERVICES 

The client is a private family of Barbadian and Dominican origin, living in London but seeking to relocate to Barbados. They therefore wanted to build a house for their use and retirement in Barbados.

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They engaged a local builder to build the house according to outline designs completed to meet the Town and Country Planning requirements. A lump sum contract price was agreed and signed, with stage payments made. As a result of the financial crash, which had a delayed impact on Barbados, construction activity fell and the builder got into financial difficulty. As a result the works were not fully completed, although monies had been paid to do the work.

The result of our work led to the the client receiving a clear understanding of the situation they faced, and a contractual undertaking for the repayments. The work was then completed in a phased approach to completion.

COMMERCIAL SUPPORT ON UK WIDE OUTSOURCING CONTRACT 

Mitie was awarded a substantial facilities management contract covering an estate of some 3,500 buildings with an annual value of approximately £150m. The contract was negotiated over a short period of time and mobilised in three months.

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Through our understanding of large complex contracts, we were able to ascertain the important obligations and build the appropriate process charts. From this, systems were put in place to manage the contract.

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After working through our consulting process, Mitie was able to have a clear understanding of the obligations so that the contract staff could easily relate to those obligations and manage the risks of the contract. 

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STUDENT ACCOMMODATION 

Due to increased international student deman, UWI was seeking to build another student accommodation block and wanted to use the PPP structure as a means of securing a financed solution. 

A suite of documents were put together to ensure the project would be allowed and procured in the most cost effective way including; development of project structures, production of a financial model, production of a request for proposal and contract documents, assisted tender evaluation and contact negotiation, reviewing and drafting operational specifications and requirements. 

BASSETERRE HIGH SCHOOL 

Innotech Services Ltd (ISL) is one of the major contractor companies in the Caribbean region, with an operating branch in St. Kitts. ISL has been contracted to undertake the design and build of a new school on the island using construction management.

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The project is an ambitious and modern designed building for a large secondary school on a new Greenfield site. ISL has been involved in the project from inception and ACE has been in a supporting role.

The architectural design was undertaken using Building Information Modelling techniques, which is a new method for the Caribbean region.

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This resulted in a very large and sophisticated project is being managed in an open and transparent way, so that all parties have a clear understanding of what is going on.

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CONTRACT TRAINING 

Brookfield Asset Management (Formally Multiplex Facilities Management) was engaged by the SPV, Peterborough (Progressive Health) Ltd to provide the hard FM services for the Peterborough City PFI hospital contract.

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The Brookfield delivery team on site needed to understand all of their obligations and how to operate the payment mechanism, in a simple and straightforward way, such that every member of the team could easily understand what they had to do.

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Although we were very familiar with these types of contracts, we had to read the contract documentation carefully to make sure we fully understood the particular requirements of this contract and in particular how the payment mechanism worked in detail. We then produced a simple to follow operational guide detailing all the obligations of the parties in order to allow the operational team to easily understand those obligations and apply them to the everyday operations of the contract. We then delivered an onsite training programme to the operational hard FM team.

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The Brookfield team were able to fully understand all of their obligations and to set up the required systems to effectively manage the contract in a complaint way. They also had an easy to follow operational guide which they could refer to as required.