DET Vic Ensures Schools Meet OH&S Standards with Unimarket
The project in this case study was awarded PASA 2021 Procurement Innovation of the Year. This study details how the Department of Education and Training (DET) Victoria worked with Unimarket and a pilot group of 21 schools to coordinate sourcing of OHS and Maintenance services.
Project background
For small schools located in rural or regional areas, it can be challenging to get suppliers to respond to an RFx. The jobs they post are often considered too small and far away for contractors to be interested in.
As a result of this "tyranny of distance", crucial works can be delayed despite the school’s desire to have them completed. This can range from simple maintenance works to important OH&S measures.
For these schools, finding the time to prioritise procurement is also quite difficult. Many only have a handful of staff, and it is not uncommon for them to have only two teachers, one of whom is also the principal.
On their own, these are considerable headwinds. But on top of these challenges, small schools often operate with a lack of knowledge about procurement best practices and with a limited budget to attract contractors.
After examining this situation, the DET realised something needed to change in order to provide both schools and students with the best possible learning environment. They developed a plan to use procurement as an enabler to help these schools meet important maintenance and OH&S benchmarks.
The Innovation
In mid-2020, the DET designed a pilot program called the Small Schools Facilities and OHS Initiative. The duration of the pilot was one year and the target region was South West Victoria. Participation was optional and selected schools were keen to participate.
The project was led by Linda Wilkinson, Manager - School Maintenance Advice and Planning at the DET.
"For this pilot, we had 21 small schools in the Horsham area and we had a coordinator in the area to support these schools with organising their maintenance, OH&S and essential safety measures," Linda said.
"When we started the pilot, we realised there were quite a few elements that would need to be part of the ultimate solution, and all of it would need to comply with our DET procurement guidelines."
To achieve this, Linda reached out to J’aime Meddings, Manager - Commercial Strategy and Procurement at the DET. J’aime suggested using a software solution to ensure these schools were involved in the procurement process while ensuring compliance.
The DET chose Unimarket, a configurable source-to-pay procurement platform. It ticked the boxes of showing a good return on investment, being compliant with public procurement policy and being easy to use.
According to J’aime, the final point was of paramount importance.
"There are challenges in the government procurement space, and with the project, we are dealing with schools whose core competencies are education, not asset management," J’aime said.
"I was aware of Unimarket, and that it was easy for buyers to use in terms of capability required, so I thought it would be the ideal vehicle to enable the project."
As part of the pilot, the DET aimed to do the following, empowered by the Unimarket platform:
- Reduce the administrative burden on small schools by appointing regional coordinators to do the bulk of procurement groundwork.
- Organise group purchasing events for multiple small schools to increase the probability of getting a response to an otherwise overlooked RFx.
- Get the schools directly involved when it came time to evaluate an RFx.
- Achieve bulk-purchasing discounts to save small schools money.
- Provide the schools with supplier compliance information at vital decision points (E.g. Working with Children checks, public liability insurance, etc).
- Easily identify local suppliers for the schools to source from (where possible)
Another important feature that Unimarket brought to the table was the ability to scale the evaluation of responses to be as simple or as structured as a sourcing event required – be this quick sourcing with basic, documented decision-making; using a matrix of weighted assessment criteria; or performing a full, multi-party evaluation with internal and external experts.
The ability to conduct multi-party evaluation was vital to the success of the pilot. Schools would need to be able to evaluate an RFx within a short period of time once suppliers had responded.
They would need to be presented with only the evaluation criteria that were relevant to them. Also, for bulk purchasing, multiple schools would have to evaluate the same RFx.
Performing this via email and spreadsheets would have been incredibly challenging. However, by bringing participants together on a dedicated platform, all of this could be done easily within a single space.
For the pilot, supplier information was gathered and updated into the system, and was, in turn, presented to the buyers at important decision points (when shortlisting bidders, and again when RFxs were being finalised).
For bulk purchasing, the schools were divided into groups of up to eight for an RFx, chosen due to their proximity to each other.
The Challenges
If the DET could not get schools interested in using this new platform, the pilot would not succeed. Getting their buy-in was vital.
"Because school principals are busy, we had to make sure it was a very supported and managed process, and not a piece of technology we’re dumping on them," Linda said. "We ran tailored presentations to these schools on what the benefits are of this supportive procurement rather than focusing on the technology itself."
"We had to keep the schools engaged because they’re not obliged to be involved in the pilot. It had to be very positive and not make the schools feel like they are under any pressure, that we were saving them effort and not adding to their administrative load." Because it was a proof of concept, the whole rollout – not just the software component – had to be done with a small budget.
"The whole project had a very limited budget because it was a proof of concept, and a lot of software solutions are very expensive. And for this reason alone, it might not have been able to be considered. So the cost-effectiveness of the Unimarket solution played a part."
Another considerable obstacle was running this pilot during the pandemic, especially when it involved onboarding remotely located schools.
"Among the challenges – and this speaks to the remarkable effort of Linda and her team – this pilot has been rolled out during COVID-19," J’aime said. "This is at a time when you can’t meet up with schools and get everyone face-to-face."
"We wouldn’t have been able to do what we’ve been doing for the schools without Unimarket." ~ Linda Wilkinson, DET Victoria
"We couldn’t get this pilot to work without an online solution. With it, we weren’t constrained by where everyone was." Of the participating schools, some already had local service providers, and it was important that these suppliers were not excluded from any new opportunities. "The ease of onboarding in terms of getting these suppliers onto Unimarket was attractive to us," J’aime said.
The Outcome
The pilot successfully ran from July 2020 and ended in July 2021. The feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive. A post-pilot survey showed that for procurement events that took place $1170 was saved per school.
"While that might not sound like a lot, it’s a lot for a school as they have really tight budgets," J’aime said. The supply base had also become more interested in responding because of the more lucrative jobs on offer. "One school might need a room painted, and that’s not attractive in and of itself. But a job for painting rooms across five or six schools in the same area is much more appealing."
"Also, by these schools evaluating together, all schools impacted or involved felt like they have had a voice."
The principals involved in the pilot also reported gaining considerable time back in their day. "Because we put the whole scope of work together and send out the request to quote, all the schools need to do is spend half an hour on evaluation," Linda said.
"The principals said this saves a huge amount of time because otherwise, they would have spent a whole day trying to locate a supplier. And this new process also makes their procurement compliant for us."
Due to the success of the first pilot, a second pilot was immediately launched with a wider scope. In August 2021, 21 schools in northwest Victoria joined the initiative.
The aim of the second pilot is to support small schools with their maintenance and OHS activities, reduce their administrative load and facilitate better utilisation of smaller budgets.
There will be a focus on purchasing activities related to central safety measures as well as other key maintenance obligations.
The success of this pilot has been recognised by DET’s Corporate Procurement Division. "This successful pilot has got the Minister’s visibility and they are very supportive of it. We are hoping to extend this scalable pilot out across all 330 small regional schools in Victoria," Linda said. "We wouldn’t have been able to do what we’ve been doing for the schools without Unimarket."
"We would have taken at least a year to set something up for ourselves, and it wouldn’t have had the same functions that Unimarket has." "Around school adoption, the Unimarket team has been very helpful in conducting training sessions and online sessions to help us get over the line." By building on and improving existing procurement processes, the innovative pilot program has driven a significant improvement in the lives of educators at Victoria’s more remote schools.
The project was later awarded the PASA 2021 Procurement Innovation of the Year.