3 Things to Consider When Applying for Vehicle Fleet Maintenance Contracts

Published21st June 2021 AuthorJohn Hudson

Vehicle fleet maintenance contracts explained

Vehicle fleet maintenance contracts can be a tricky field to navigate if you’re new to it. However, it’s worth making the effort as they can secure a pipeline of work for your business.

The Department for Infrastructure is one public sector organisation that releases vehicle fleet maintenance contracts. Securing a contract for a public sector buyer will guarantee your payment. This can be reassuring, especially if you’re a new business.

The questions that a vehicle fleet maintenance contract will ask will vary depending on the buyer’s requirements. They can include, but aren’t limited to:

  • Account management
  • Vehicle order process
  • Service maintenance and repair
  • Complaints handling and resolution process
  • Continuous improvement
  • Supply chain management
  • Vehicle sourcing
  • Vehicle distribution and movements
  • Fleet management system
  • Vehicle disposal
  • Accident and claims management
  • Vehicle conversion and modification
  • Driver support services
  • Breakdown and recovery
  • Vehicle downtime management
  • MOT management
  • Fuel card management
  • Mileage management.

3 things to consider when applying for vehicle fleet maintenance contracts

  1. Framework agreement

You will often find vehicle fleet maintenance contracts as part of a framework agreement. A framework agreement is a multi-supplier agreement for goods/services. Suppliers can have access to ongoing work whenever the buyer needs it. Framework agreements can run for years at a time with the possibility of an extension.

A benefit of being on a framework means suppliers don’t have to go through the whole tendering process each time. Often, a framework agreement is split into Lots for a specific good, service or geographical location. This means as a supplier you don’t have to be able to supply the whole agreement. You need only apply to the location or good/service you specialise in.

An example of a vehicle fleet maintenance framework agreement lots:

  • Lot 1 – provision of fleet maintenance services
  • Lot 2 – provision of fleet management services.
  1. Social Value

Social value is an every-important section within almost every tender response. It’s no different for vehicle fleet maintenance contracts. The social value of the project is vital if tendering within the public sector. It now has a mandatory weighting of 10% within the quality response. In some cases, it can be as large as 30%.

Social value is the economic, social and environmental aspects of a response. What is your organisation promising to lessen the environmental impact or give back to the local community? Your company’s sustainable development goals should maximise and promote good social values. You shouldn’t put anything down for the sake of it, buyers want to see you making commitments you can keep.

The social value model aims to:

  • Create new jobs
  • Level-up the UK
  • Tackle climate change
  • Reduce waste
  • Encourage economic growth
  • Encourage COVID-19 recovery
  • Promote skills
  • Promote equal opportunities.
  1. Experience

When writing your vehicle fleet maintenance contract response, you will usually be required to provide case studies of your experience. The buyer wants to know that you are qualified and have the necessary experience required to fulfil the contract. You may be asked to provide three past case studies of work you’ve completed that’s of a similar calibre. Typically, they must be within the last three or five years.

You must also back up any statement of claim you make with concrete, auditable evidence. If you claim to be the best in the market, you must back it up with evidence. Avoid phrases such as ‘we have undertaken numerous projects that are similar in scope’. It doesn’t reflect well on you; they’ll want to know exactly how many, questioning your knowledge.

Need help writing your next vehicle fleet maintenance contracts?

 Our team of Bid Writers at Hudson Succeed know the trials and tribulations of writing a winning bid. We know you’ve got a lot on your plate and don’t always have the time to spare.

Our Bid Writers have an 87% success rate and over 60-years of bidding experience. We offer four bid writing solutions to suit your tendering needs.

Tender Ready

Tender Ready is the perfect programme for those who are completely new to tendering.

Tender Improvement

If you have already been applying for tenders but aren’t seeing success our Tender Improvement package can help. Our Bid Writers will go over your previous submissions and provide feedback and guidance.

Tender Writing

Have you found the perfect vehicle fleet maintenance contract for your business but are struggling to start? Send it over to our Bid Writing team and they can write the whole response for you. If you use our Tender Writing service, they’ll even submit it on your behalf!

Tender Mentor  

Our Bid Writers can look over a bid response you’ve already written, checking it for errors before you submit. Sometimes you just need another pair of eyes to go over your response and our Tender Mentor service can help.

Where can I find vehicle fleet maintenance contracts?

Transport Tenders portal hosts hundreds of new opportunities in this industry from across the UK. Our Opportunity Trackers manually upload hundreds of live tenders daily from both the public and private sectors. You can filter results via keyword, budget, location and more. You no longer have to rely on inaccurate CPV codes! This means you’ll never miss out on an opportunity to grow your business again.

Below are previous vehicle fleet maintenance contracts sourced on our portal:

DfI Roads and Rivers – Fleet Maintenance, North-West and Greater Belfast Areas

Department for Infrastructure- Northern Ireland- Budget: Undisclosed

DfI Roads and Rivers – Provision of Fleet Maintenance for Commercial Vehicles over 3,500 KG

Department for Infrastructure- Northern Ireland- Budget: £1,900,000

East Lindsey District Council Vehicle Fleet Maintenance

East Lindsey District Council- East Midlands- Budget: Undisclosed

Fleet Maintenance

Corby Borough Council- East Midlands- Budget: £240,000

Tender for the Provision of Fleet Maintenance

Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council- International- Budget: Undisclosed

A subscription to Transport Tenders could increase your chances of securing delivery contracts. With time saved and numerous opportunities found, Transport Tenders can feed seamlessly into your business development strategy. With a subscription to the portal, you receive:

  • Unlimited access to the Transport Tenders portal. Increase your chance of success.
  • A dedicated Account Manager on hand to help you will any and all logistics tenders.
  • A free 20-minute phone consultation. Chat to one of our team about a contract you’re interested in. We can provide expert advice, insight and guidance to support your tendering efforts.
  • A daily email bulletin of all the logistics tenders published that day helping you stay ahead of the game.

On Transport Tenders, we post contracts for:

Book a free live demo today for a quick tour of our portal. Get in touch to learn more about our bespoke bid writing services.

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