Leadership and Management

Procedure for Engaging External Consultants Bounce Fitness acknowledges that from time-to-time the organisation will need to engage external support,

whether consultants, contractors or external service providers, through a competitive procedure to put in

place appropriate management processes for the successful completion of projects and to achieve the

benefits in such a way that Value for Money is obtained.

Value for Money includes three basic elements: economy, efficiency and effectiveness, and is achieved when

organisations use their resources, including bought-in external resources, with economy and efficiency to

achieve effectiveness in their operations.

A contractor is a person, organisation or group thereof engaged, for a limited time period, to provide specified

goods, works or services that implement established policy objectives; to assist Bounce Fitness in carrying

out its operations and functions; or to perform operations or functions that involve skills or capabilities that

would normally be expected to reside within Bounce Fitness but which are not currently available.

Before a contracting authority considers hiring external support, it must first determine that the project

cannot be delivered in-house. If adequate internal resources are not available or if an external review is

mandated, it is only at this stage that hiring of external support should be considered.

Bounce Fitness will use a competitive process for the purchase of goods and services, whatever the value.

Consultants, contractors and outside service providers, therefore, must be engaged following such a process.

The Project Manager must decide the pricing model that will allow the award of a contract on a basis that

is approved by the CEO and that will also obtain Value for Money over the life of the project. This can

be achieved by developing a pricing model or cost breakdown structure that will evaluate the fixed (and

variable, if any) prices proposed by tenderers over the whole life of the project. In particular, a tenderer ’s

cost proposal must be evaluated to see if it changes the cost to Bounce Fitness and what impact such

changes would have on the whole life cost of the project.

Risk management should be built into a contracting authority’s procurement procedures. The Project

Manager should ensure that appropriate procedures are in place to identify and assess all relevant risks

throughout the procurement cycle. As a general principle, risks should be borne by the party best placed to

manage them and a body should not accept risks which another party is better placed to manage.

The CEO must review the business case, assess and approve the business justification for the project on

presentation of the full business case; the decision to hire external support; and the procurement strategy

proposed.

The CEO must also confirm that the project is well planned and will achieve policy objectives of sufficient

importance to Bounce Fitness relative to the whole life costs, in terms of the resources, both financial and

personnel, which they are prepared to commit to the implementation of the project and thereafter; that the

business case is comprehensive, has been properly prepared and is justified; and, that, on implementation,

the project will achieve Bounce Fitness policy objectives and Value for Money.