United Utilities: £300m+ Professional Services Framework Tendered to Award and £0.9m Saved

The Situation

United Utilities is the UK’s largest listed water company, providing water and wastewater services to more than seven million customers across the North West. Its capital programme runs in five-year AMP cycles set by Ofwat, and the programme in delivery at the time was valued at £7bn. Delivering infrastructure on that scale, on time and within regulatory performance commitments, depends on procurement getting the big commercial decisions right first time.

In late 2022 the company needed senior procurement capability to take a professional services framework worth over £300m, and other complex commercial services tenders, through to award, to tighten the management of its NEC4 framework agreements, and to fix purchase-to-pay processes that were costing money and slowing the business down. It needed someone who could run the tenders and fix the process at the same time, rather than a consultant to write a report about either.

What We Did

Pro Outsourcing was embedded in the United Utilities procurement function for sixteen months, from December 2022 to March 2024, working on both the strategic and the operational side. Tom Evans MCIPS led the work personally. It covered:

• Leading the tender for a professional services framework worth over £300m, end to end within the AMP investment programme: sourcing strategy, market engagement, evaluation, negotiation and award, alongside other complex commercial services tenders. See our strategic sourcing service for how we run this.
• Managing high-value NEC4 framework agreements so that they stayed commercially robust, with supplier performance measured and managed rather than assumed.
• Overhauling purchase-to-pay processes and procedures to remove waste, strengthen governance and give budget holders a faster, more controlled route to buy.
• Making sure every tender and framework decision met the Utilities Contracts Regulations and the company’s cost, sustainability and service commitments, with an audit trail to prove it.

The Results

The £300m+ professional services framework reached award on competitive terms, compliant and on the timeline the capital programme needed, giving the business a compliant route to the engineering, consultancy and specialist support the AMP programme depends on. The purchase-to-pay overhaul delivered £0.9m of savings, not identified for someone else to chase but delivered during the engagement. The NEC4 frameworks were left with clearer supplier performance management and stronger commercial control.

United Utilities ended the engagement with a procurement function that was faster, more compliant and more cost-effective, and with the commercial foundations in place for the next AMP cycle. The same capability is available to other water companies through our water industry procurement service.