Driven by competitive pressures and the need to modernise, Royal Mail has taken a major step by partnering with the private sector to fulfil its property needs. Facing a £1 billion property investment programme over five years, Royal Mail has outsourced the project management of its national rollouts to three national framework suppliers - including us.
This major bid has been delivered professionally and to a tough programme by Royal Mail. Programme management and control has been retained within a core team of expertise in house.
We won through a massive field of competitors on previous performance to land the three-year national commission for PM which is extendable by three years and have also been made the preferred supplier in the northern region and an alternate supplier nationwide.
In addition, Royal Mail has appointed us over the same period to provide health and safety audits, its highest priority objective where it hopes to achieve zero accidents and zero contraventions of any legislative provisions.
The framework agreements cover a Royal Mail capital and maintenance works programme of £900 million over the next five years. The investment in its property portfolio is to meet changing demands, such as electronic billing, banking, warehousing and customer returns, as the Royal Mail targets the goal of being the world's best postal service.
Royal Mail property director Ian Daker said: "We've appointed consultants with genuine national capability in all the services we need and a track record of performance and delivery for us. On every factor we measured, such as the quality of people, processes and procedures, and value for money, Bucknalls were never out of the top three."
We will provide multi-disciplinary design teams on projects, employing architects, engineers and quantity surveyors, and will be involved from inception, feasibility, outline proposals and scheme design, through procurement to construction, handover and post-completion activity.
Partner Andy Mace, who will direct the Royal Mail team, said: "We're still in discussions over precise KPIs and service promises, but they are sure to include speed of response, budget compliance, health and safety and completions on time."