Halton Housing develops procurement framework

Halton Housing, a housing association in the North West, has created its own fleet procurement framework with Link Group to reduce fleet costs.

The framework covers nine separate types of vehicles, ranging from small cars to 26 tonne refuse vehicles as well as vehicle telematics and electric charging posts.

Scott Murray, director of homes at  Halton Housing, said: “Vehicle procurement is an expensive and time-consuming part of our budget allocation and we are delighted to have worked with Link Group to instigate our own framework and work with manufacturers that share our vision.

“It will give us significant budget and resource savings and we hope will do the same for other contracting authorities.”

There are two distinct ways to approach vehicle procurement: The full tender, which is time consuming and complex; or using an already tendered framework, which leads to a rebate paid by supplier to framework, which in many cases affects potential discounts the public body could benefit from.

Halton Housing’s approach sets the rebate paid at a transparent and affordable £1 per unit for assets up to £20,000; £10 per unit for assets up to £100,000 and £50 rebate per unit for assets up to £0.5 million.

The framework will last for four years and is open to other housing associations and contracting authorities around the UK.

“At Halton Housing we have a reputation for embedding innovation in the way we deliver services to residents. In establishing a £1 rebate fleet framework that can be used throughout the entire country we hope we can help to genuinely free up resource and increase value for money to reinvest in services to improve people’s lives,” added Murray.

Halton Housing operates a fleet 60 vehicles and provides housing services to more than 7,000 homes across Widnes and Runcorn.