A matchmaker service for SMEs to help them collaborate with bigger firms is celebrating a significant milestone.
Swimming with the Big Fish, delivered by specialist quantity surveying and procurement practice Solomons Europe, was engaged by the £7 billion Programme and Project Partners initiative.
The frameworks have a combined potential value of £51 million in the first five years.
The commercial model rewards project performance as well as other factors including sustainability, developing people and investment in Cumbria.
Solomons Europe’s managing director Dominic Doig said: “We’re delighted to see the first SME frameworks signed and sealed.
“This is a significant milestone for PPP and the culmination of a huge effort by the Swimming with the Big Fish SME Matchmaker Service working closely with PPP’s appointed key delivery partners.
“The procurement and commercial approach taken by PPP is pioneering. It is building an enterprise – an ecosystem of business aligned to deliver PPP’s ambitions to make the Sellafield site safe for future generations and delivers better outcomes for local communities.
“Business, in particular SMEs, are driven by delivering on time and on budget. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the PPP model demands more.
“Our focus is on helping to build long term, mutually respectful and beneficial relationships between major contractors and SMEs through PPP contracts.
“These contracts not only contain project related targets but also targets for local job creation, apprentice recruitment, skills enhancement, investment in facilities and offices and social impact activities that make a real difference to local people.
“We’re looking forward to seeing these targets become a reality. And we’re looking forward to further SME framework announcements over the coming months. This first raft of frameworks is very much just the start. There are many more to come.”
John Rossiter, head of PPP supply chain and executive director at Solomons Europe, added: “This is a huge milestone for PPP as we enter in to our first long-term frameworks with SMEs and local businesses at Tier 3 of our ecosystem; a first in the construction industry and the output of a huge and collaborative effort by an aligned team from PPP, the KDPs and the Swimming with the Big Fish SME Matchmaker Service.”
To date, 116 SMEs have registered with the Swimming with the Big Fish SME Matchmaker Service.
The service has supported the agreement of 35 heads of terms between 23 SMEs and KDPs and is currently focused on converting these into frameworks. It has set a target of 21 framework agreements by the end of March 2024 – a figure that has potential to more than double.
The service is delivered by team members from Solomons Europe based in its offices near Cockermouth and Kendal.
