Kingdom Housing Group has appointed six firms to its new three-year legal framework in a procurement process that highlighted the requirement of the successful firms to include community benefits in their tenders to deliver added value.

Six different lots were up for tender in the framework, which Kingdom has the option to extend for one year. Separate tenders were invited for: General Legal, Contractual & Procurement issues; Conveyancing and Related Issues; Governance; Employment Law; Finance Management and Housing & Estate Management issues.

The successful firms, which were praised by Kingdom Housing Group chief executive Bill Banks for their sense of Corporate Social Responsibility, are: BTO solicitors, Harper Macleod, HBJ Gateley, Shepherd & Wedderburn, TC Young and Thorntons.

The firms are supporting Kingdom’s community benefits strategy by offering a number of services and taking part in a variety of initiatives. These include: free training briefing sessions and legal updates for Kingdom staff; on-call support through a free helpline and advice services; Work experience placements and training opportunities within the legal firm; Employment and trainee opportunities; Sponsorship of community events; Charity fund raising; Volunteering in community projects; Supporting Community Arts projects; Education projects with schools and voluntary teaching and Commitments to implement procedures as part of the arrangements to reduce energy consumption and reduce waste.

Specialist procurement company, Tender Bids assisted with the process which was coordinated by Kingdom’s governance officer Calum Kippen.

He explained: “The procurement process was time consuming and required input from all departments within Kingdom. We are pleased we appointed Tender Bids to support and assist us through this process, which has ensured we complied fully with procurement requirements and allowed us to apply a fair and objective assessment criteria allowing us to recognise and assess value for money, through the costs, experience, methodology to be applied and added value to be gained over the framework period.”

Bill Banks, Kingdom Group chief executive said: “We are delighted that the legal services framework is now in place. The procurement process was based on an assessment criteria that recognised both price and quality and all six legal firms have demonstrated they will be able to provide us with high quality professional legal services, across all our areas of operation.”

Bill added: “Collaborative working and the delivery of community benefits are key priorities for us and I was particularly impressed by the added value that was confirmed as part of the tender submissions. The initiatives will allow us to work in partnership with the different legal practices to implement additional employment, training, educational and community projects to enhance our community benefits and wider role programme.”