Projects

South West Buying Hub

Place Group was commissioned by the Department for Education to establish a pilot programme to influence the buying attitudes and behaviours of school business managers, to inform a national rollout. With strict service credit KPIs, we engaged with nearly 2,000 schools, deployed a change programme, developed efficient procurement practices across all categories of spend, captured and benchmarked data and helped schools save over £26m, meeting or exceeding all KPIs.

Carolynn Greenwood, Contract Manager
Schools Commercial Team, Department for Education

West Midlands Combined Authority

Place Group provided the West Midlands Combined Authority with expertise to supplement its internal team. The Authority team were under significant pressure in the run up to the Commonwealth Games and through working with the internal team we were able to ensure that all procurements were compliant and that internal stakeholders were advised on the best routes and procurement solutions available.

“Place Group provide a procurement resource hub to support critical contracts across the West Midland Combined Authority services. The hub team has delivered exceptional value to our stakeholders, providing category knowledge and procurement solutions to meet our challenging timescales. They perfectly complement our internal procurement function, high quality and committed consultants that quickly became part of the in-house team. The hub provides excellent value for money, and my internal stakeholders have been delighted with the support that they receive.”

Lesley Edwards, Head of Procurement
West Midlands Combined Authority

Capital projects

Place Group has supported capital projects for over twenty years, securing funding and providing overall programme management for billions worth of building programmes. Our work involves stakeholder engagement and communications, including statutory consultation, through to procuring construction and infrastructure services. We have managed hundreds of new school and nursery retrofit buildings for programmes from Building Schools for the Future to Academies and Free Schools, to the Commonwealth Games and Metro transport to decarbonising the public sector estate.

“Place Group provided high quality and committed consultants that quickly became part of our in-house team. Place Group provides efficient and knowledgeable resource and always delivers excellent results. I’d have no hesitation in recommending them.”

Wajid Hussain
Finance Manager Midland Metro

Early Years

Place Group has significant experience of undertaking early years and childcare themed projects for clients including Local Authorities, Multi Academy Trusts and maintained sector schools.

For Local Authorities we can support with:

Childcare Sufficiency Assessments – (post COVID-19 we have worked in this capacity for 20 Local Authorities
Early Years and Childcare sector sustainability and business support projects
SEND and Alternative Provision reviews
Reviews of Family Hub and Children’s Centre services –
Planning for new early years childcare provisions, commonly linked to the establishment of new primary schools
Need Assessments for wraparound and out of school childcare
Early years themed marketing and communications projects

For Multi Academy Trusts and maintained sector schools (including Federations and clusters of maintained schools) we can support with:

Planning for new early years and childcare provisions – including through Significant Change Project funding applications
Business planning and revenue generation forecasting
Navigating standards and Ofsted quality directives
Community consultation aligned to potential need and demand for new early years childcare places

Growth – MAT Advance

Place Group has a tailored offer could MAT Advance. This offer has been modelled including as an outcome of our experience of establishing and growing our own Multi Academy Trust: Bellevue Place Education Trust: https://www.bpet.co.uk/ .

MAT Advance involves our team of specialists working with a Trust on one of more specific forms of support.

Each participating MAT will have a single point of contact with Place Group: a MAT Advance Account Manager, with forms of support being multi-faceted and ranging from:

From the perspective of Growth:

Writing sponsor applications, to establish new mainstream and special schools via Local Authority competitions insert: KR this then should link to a section which promotes the *live* at any one time Local Authority presumption competitions which DN would send as a matter of course once they are announced by a LA – for example this is the sole current live competition as of late September, 2024.: https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk
Identification of potential academy convertors i.e. Trust onboarders
Academy Conversions
MAT mergers and associated brokerage
MAT establishment projects
MAT Significant Change Projects
Relevant revenue and capital grant applications

From the perspective of key MAT Operational Dynamics:

MAT procurement insert link as appropriate
Short and medium term MAT HR support
MAT compliance and governance
Short and medium term MAT finance support
MAT business support (including to support MAT capacity)
MAT Communication and Marketing projects
MAT Safeguarding Audits
MAT net zero and carbon reduction projects
MAT school(s) Divestment Projects

Representatives of Multi Academy Trust can access MAT Advance through insert contact form. A member of our team can then organise an initial exploratory, no cost virtual meeting.

Procurement

Place Group has a team of MCIPS qualified public sector procurement professionals that have worked in Defence, Healthcare, University and School settings as well as Central and local Government. Between us we have purchased for, and have worked in, almost every public sector setting and understand the complexity and importance of getting it right.

We offer two routes to our service; Interim, where we work as part of the client team and are on hand to support with whatever needs arise, or on a project-by-project basis whereby clients outsource their contract tendering requirements to us.