ESS has agreed a two-year extension of its DIO Soft FM contracts in the Wales & West Midlands, East and South West regions.
The revised contracts will see the company continuing to provide services on over 200 military establishments until 2024. These include catering, retail, leisure, cleaning, waste management, laundry, tailoring, administration and stores management alongside a variety of other FM services.
ESS has worked with DIO to deliver the contracts since January 2018 in the Wales & West Midlands, March 2018 in the East and June 2018 in the South-West.
During the past year, the organisation received the Institute for Collaborative Working’s Service Sector Award for its work alongside DIO. The award recognises teams that excel in improving service delivery through a collaborative approach and is indicative of the successful relationship between ESS and DIO across the three regions.
In the process of securing the extensions, ESS submitted a report detailing its recent social value activity which includes banning air-freighted fruit and vegetables, introducing chemical free cleaning, working with local suppliers and SMEs, employing colleagues locally, providing extensive training and development opportunities and ensuring teams have access to a wellbeing programme.
This is backed by the business’ parent company, Compass Group UK & Ireland, which has announced a commitment to reach Climate Net Zero by 2030 and launched its ‘Mission to a Million’, a pledge to support one million people by 2030 through job creation, education, training, community and charitable engagement.
The longer contract term allows ESS to continue focusing on, and investing in, enhancing the lived experience for service personnel.
James Crosfield, DIO Regional Delivery SW Region Hd, commented:
"Working with ESS for another two years allows us to continue jointly seeking further improvements in the service. We have overcome many challenges in the last few years as a result of the pandemic. These have grown the relationship and allowed us to mature and improve and build on our collaboration. Our recent joint partnering board discussed many exciting initiatives that the extension will allow us to pursue."
Bob Gray, Managing Director – ESS Defence, Marine and Aerospace, commented:
“The Hestia contract extension enables us to keep building on the significant work we’ve already done to improve the daily lives of service personnel in the sites where we operate. This is an exciting time for Defence Soft FM as we look at new ways to meet the needs of today’s Armed Forces, and we’re delighted to be on this journey with our clients.”
