The winning of a new contract with the Ministry of Defence was recently being celebrated by Interserve, the services, maintenance and building group, having been awarded the PFI agreement in consortium with John Laing.

It will see Interserve supply a range of services to a new office and accommodation complex for the MoD at Corsham, Wiltshire, with a construction and facilities management value of £310 million.

Mark Porter, Interserve transition manager, explained to Service Management magazine that it was not the largest contract that the company had been involved in, but was probably the most diverse in terms of the range of services included. ‘We’ve traditionally supplied hard services for our other projects, but this one requires soft services among the 34 service lines we will be providing,’ said Porter.

The additional requirements include the provision of catering, cleaning, courier, administration, training and transport, amongst other considerations. Interserve has experience of these through other members of its group, including its Special Services and Service Management divisions. Incorporating the two aspects within the same contract has allowed the company to achieve its goal of widening its horizons.

Porter further explained that the new project will see three sites converge into one to provide operational and logistical savings for the MoD. The company currently provides facilities maintenance services to all three sites on a WSM basis. The company had found that these were being replaced with PFI contracts, said Porter, which had different performance paramaters and required service providers to accept more responsibility.

He also explained that the comprehensive requirements of the new contract illustrated how the MoD is outsourcing more of its services and stated this was also popular with personnel, many of whom would rather be actively serving with their colleagues rather than involved in desk-bound, logistical operations.

When construction of the Corsham facility is complete, Interserve will provide the various necessary services that will require up to 180 members of staff. This will be worth £194m over the 25 year operational phase.

Describing the project as ‘quite daunting’, Porter stated that there mechanisms in place to ensure that KPI requirements were met. These included details such as the identification of critically important areas and how they should be kept operational. ‘These mechanisms are essential for both parties,’ said Porter.

Construction will begin immediately and is due to be completed in early 2011. Interserve and John Laing will each invest £7m in the project as their respective 50% equity/sub-debt stake.

The MoD, through Defence Equipment and Support’s Information Systems & Services organisation (DE&S ISS), will establish a communication centre of excellence, with an environment capable of supporting an estimated 2,200 military and civilian staff. All essential personnel and business partners will co-locate on the single site.

The consortium will work with DE&S ISS and Defence Estates throughout the project. Interserve will be involved alongside Laing O’Rourke during the construction of the new flagship offices and single living accommodation and will then provide a range of facilities management services worth £194 million over the 25-year operational phase.