People, Purpose, and Procurement: David Parrett on the Future of Facilities Management

Within the highly diverse world of the FM industry, we are constantly reminded of the wisdom of the expression: “There is no substitute for experience and knowledge”, both of which are closely linked to the individuals and companies providing the best services.

This can be seen to be highly relevant to the impressive career of Cadaema Consulting Services director David Parrett, who has worked on both client and service provider sides of the FM sector over the last quarter of a century. Having been employed by large, municipal councils and also several of the most notable service providers in our sector, he is continuing to share his hard-won expertise with the growing list of clients of his consultancy business.

“My first experience of the FM sector came when I started working for Westminster City Council in 2001,” he states. “I worked as the council’s transport manager and my main responsibility was organising transport for children with additional needs, who often have to travel to different areas of the UK to attend the most relevant school or institution for them.

“We worked with and met some truly amazing people, who would give everything for the children and provide them with the best levels of support they could possibly could,” he continues.

When the council outsourced its services to Accord Operations Limited in 2003, Mr Parrett transferred to his new employer in the role of business analyst. His main responsibilities included supporting the development of the target operating model for this new team, the management of contractual performance, ensuring that the company operated as sustainably and profitably as possible and business development.

“This was my first experience of the world of total FM (TFM), with Accord overseeing all the security, cleaning and front of house services, as well as all the management of hard services to control the council’s estate,” he explains. “You could also say this was my first experience of the world of consultancy as we continued to develop a coherent business model.”

Further opportunities emerged to assist Mr Parrett with progressing his business development experience, resulting in him joining Dalkia Energy & Technical Services to support the business development of its FM activities in both the public and private sectors. Through their acquisition of Dalkia, this led him to joining Mitie in August 2009 and gaining more valuable industry experience and knowledge, before joining Interserve in late 2012 in ever more senior roles.

“Joining Interserve provided me with my first experience with PFI contracts. Having started as business development director before moving on to head of business development – government, I was heavily involved in managing relationships and identifying opportunities for more business.

“I was then promoted to the role of Sales Director for Interserve’s Communities business unit, selling to what we termed the ‘local public sector’ – the NHS, schools, universities and local government.” he says.

He regards the advice contributed by industry contacts and the assistance of Business Unit Managing Director, Martin Burholt, as providing the essential support needed in the first few months in the preparation, launch and running of Cadaema Consultation Services. “As I considered creating my own company, a friend told me that regardless of whether I took the step or not I should write the information for my website.

“I was travelling a lot for work at the time, so I wrote my website on a plane to Dubai. That really helped to convince me I was doing the right thing and I handed my notice in, in mid-2019. Martin said he really needed help with a specific project and asked if I would consider working out six month’s notice, instead of three.

“This allowed me to work part-time for Interserve while I developed Cadaema and I’ll be forever grateful to Martin for that. Having completed all the preparation work for my business, I launched that in early 2020, then two months later saw the world come to a halt when we had the first of the Covid pandemic lockdowns,” he states.

Despite the significant changes the pandemic caused to the FM sector and Mr Parrett’s initial business model, he found that it led to him working with Lloyds Bank to help it deal with the impact on its facilities around the UK. “They were looking to mothball all their main offices around their UK estate, so needed a plan designed to help with this and its implementation.

“I worked with Mitie to deliver this and also to help them to deliver the change management process. Then at the end of 2020 I continued to work with Lloyds as it began to reopen its facilities and as lots of staff returned from being furloughed,” he says.

With the UK continuing to recover and reopen its facilities, he found that the majority of his work and business operations focused on the public sector side of the FM industry. His expertise is continuing to prove essential to assist clients in reviewing their contracts and procurement practices to ensure these are sustainable for both the customer and its supply chain.

“One of the things I love about my job is all the conversations I have with stakeholders at all levels to make sure that their FM services are always an enabler for clients,” he continues. “You have to make sure you know all about the relevant regulations and deliver everything with plain speaking so that everyone understands exactly what’s involved and required.

“An intelligent procurement process should be a central element of any growth strategy and that includes sound contract management,” he says. “And that means not just going for the cheapest price but looking at all elements so that the deal will deliver value in the years ahead.

“I still love having the conversation with everyone to understand all the requirements of the project. It’s also become clear over the last few years that since outsourcing became more popular in the early 1990s that most of the efficiencies have already been exploited.

“Outsourcing has saved many customers huge amounts of money, but we can see that if we continue to look for the cheapest bids that’s more likely to result in more problems for everyone to deal with in the future, so it’s now far better to build value into every contract,” Mr Parrett continues. “Where procurement processes have, predominantly been based on price, you can now see processes that include 60 or 70% of the evaluation criteria being focused on the technical scoring and real terms value to the client organisation, which is an improvement but there’s still more work to do.”

He refers to the efforts of Crown Commercial Services (CCS), the largest public procurement body in the UK, which has continued to promote the focus on value within contracts since the demise of Carillion in early 2018. Mr Parrett states the essential element of ensuring both customer and service providers receive the best outcomes from their engagement and receive a reasonable result from their dealings.

“FM will always be a people industry, which effectively means that you’re selling people’s time, rather than just a product,” he continues. “That means that everyone needs to be paid fairly.”

He further states the essential requirement for employers to support their employees in as many areas as possible, including the offering of genuine career progress and opportunities. “This is more important than ever and part of the drive to deliver true social value.

“Every business now needs to save energy and reduce their carbon footprint, but these are both things that specialist FM service providers can easily deliver. And of course every business needs to make a profit and it’s becoming more obvious that including social value is one of the best ways for companies to go,” he continues.

He provides the example of the healthcare sector, which is now regarded as having just six providers capable of delivering complex, multi-service contracts on a national basis. With just a limited number of service providers to choose from, a diversified offer from companies will be very welcome and those offering genuine social value have an excellent opportunity to stand apart from the competition.

This is not just true for healthcare, of course, but for all areas of UK FM service provision and those able to match the objectives of customers are far more likely to win contracts, particularly if these include elements of social value. This brings the conversation to considering how companies are increasingly being run in the most responsible manner and making them attractive to clients with the same ambitions.

“This means managing contracts in the best way and avoiding any adversarial outcomes that can emerge. We all know that things go wrong on a regular basis and it’s the companies that can react to these and fix them in the best way that will continue to win business through the recommendations of their customers,” he continues.

“I often question whether the private sector can learn a few things from how the public sector operates and work in a better way for their customers and the industry as a whole? If they are able to make relationships and collaborative working their central aim that will always be very appealing to clients.

“There are a lot of social elements within that, as we know, and that includes nailing the message of providing genuine career opportunities and all the great things that the FM industry provides,” Mr Parrett concludes.