Our client is an independent boarding and day school that provides quality facilities for around 180 talented young musicians.

They are the oldest and one of the leading specialist music schools in England based in the outskirts of London.

The organisation’s main building is grade 2 listed with various energy management challenges.

Following a fact-finding exercise, Beond were asked to carry out a strategic energy review. The objective of this exercise was to expose hidden premiums, rebates and savings against the current procurement process.

Following the review Beond recognised there were three main areas to focus on to achieve favourable results. These were:

• Competitive tendering using an online reverse auction.
• Retrospective over charges on the Climate Change Levy.
• Retrospective over charges on VAT.

• Understand the billing, metering and profile classification requirements of the business.
• To attract as many major suppliers to compete in the tender despite the relatively small HH volumes on offer.
• To illustrate the benefits of using a transparent live energy auction compared to manual methods.
• To offer practical advice on contract terms.
• To rectify and avoid significant penalties for out of contract rates going forward.
• To identify and advise on HMRC best practice for VAT and Climate Change rebates.
• To assist with implementing new co-terminus contracts and contract management.

By using bespoke tender processes designed by Beond, the tender process encouraged more suppliers to compete aggressively to win the contracts. The tender attracted:

• 7 suppliers who bid 29 times for the gas supplies.
• 9 suppliers who bid 26 times for the electricity supplies.

The auction results reveal a £152,512 saving against current rates.

By identifying Climate Change and VAT overcharges for the charity, The Purcell School were able to claim £52,664 in rebates.

Therefore, Beond’s strategic energy review was able to produce £205,176 in net savings for The Purcell School.

“Beond Group approached us as our energy contracts were either expired or close to. They looked at our current bills and usage and recommended the best option going forward for the next two years. Their consultant was polite, generous with his time, knowledgeable in his field and extremely diligent with communications and deadlines- we have been very impressed in particular with his level of professionalism.

Through working closely with Beond it was soon apparent that we had historically been on incorrect set ups and with some effort on both sides Beond helped us facilitate retrospective tax refunds of £38k for Electricity and £14k for Gas for the previous four years. Beond has walked us through the whole process calmly and kept us informed with regular updates.

This will make a huge difference to us as, although we are an independent school, we are largely funded by the Government’s ‘Music and Dance Scheme’ which has been frozen or received below inflation increase for that last few years.

We would have no hesitation in recommending Beond to take an organisation through the energy administration process.”

Jo Wallis, Assistant Bursar