Issue - meetings

Matter for Decision

The Officer’s report outlined a procurement strategy for the maintenance and improvement of the Council’s housing stock and other Council-owned built assets, for the next five years.

 

A number of procurement options are available for the Council.

 

The Maintenance Procurement Strategy is intended to complement the corporate procurement strategy, the Council’s Medium Term Objectives, the Council’s sustainability aspirations, the Housing Business Plan and Asset Management Strategy.

 

The Maintenance Procurement Strategy sets out how the Department will drive the procurement agenda forward and develop further long-term partnering arrangements to achieve value for money in the delivery of property maintenance and investment programmes.

 

Decision of Executive Councillor for Housing

(i)                Approved the appointment of Eastern Shires Purchasing Organization (ESPO) to carry out a procurement exercise with officers of the City Council to select two main contractors to carry out planned maintenance works for the City Council with effect from April 2014 to March 2019, with an option to extend for a period of up to three years.

(ii)              Authorised the Director of Customer and Community Services to invite and evaluate tenders and, following consultation with Executive Councillor, the Director of Resources, Chair and Spokes of the Committee to award two contracts for the appointment of main contractors to carry out planned maintenance works in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution with effect from April 2014 to March 2019, with an option to extend for one or more periods up to a maximum extension of three years.

(iii)            Approved the use of the Scape National Minor Works framework contract to call off contracts with Kier Services for a period of up to three years from October 2012 for the purpose of carrying out parts of the Council’s planned maintenance works programme.

(iv)            Approved a procurement budget of £60,000 for legal and other costs associated with the procurement and implementation the new planned works contracts and other contracts referred to in this report.

(v)              Authorised the Director of Customer and Community Services to invite and evaluate tenders (or call off services from an existing framework agreement if appropriate) and, following consultation with the Executive Councillor, Director of Resources, Chair and Spokes of the Committee to award contracts for the appointment of contractors to carry out certain types of responsive maintenance work listed in this report for a period of up to three years to supplement the Council’s direct provision of repairs and voids, in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution.

(vi)            Approved the use of the ESPO framework contract “2930 - “Installation of Gas Fired Domestic Central Heating Systems” to call off a contract for a period of up to three years to carry out heating installations and in void properties and carry out emergency boiler replacements.

(vii)          Authorised the Director of Customer and Community Services to invite and evaluate tenders (or call off services from an existing framework agreement if appropriate) and, following consultation with the Director of Resources to award a contract for the appointment of a supplier to provide a web-based NEC3 contract management application.

(viii)        Approved the recruitment of 3.5 full time equivalent additional contract management surveyors and 2 full time equivalent asset officers within the Estates and Facilities Asset Management team in order to manage the delivery of additional capital investment.

 

Reason for the Decision

As set out in the Officer’s report.

 

Any Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

Not applicable.

 

Scrutiny Considerations

The Committee received a report from the Asset Manager regarding the Maintenance Procurement Strategy 2012-2017.

 

In response to Members’ questions the Head of Estates & Facilities plus Asset Manager confirmed the following:

 

(i)                The City Council is currently undertaking gas heating installations using a framework contract jointly established with South Cambridgeshire District Council as the Council’s contractor (Chaps Ltd) was in administration.

(ii)              The council is not planning to procure a specialist asbestos removal contractor as the work could be undertaken by contractors (Apollo Property Services or Kier services) or one of their sub-contractors.

(iii)            The Council's own in-house team was unlikely to have the skill set capacity to cover all of the Council’s needs, so contractors maybe requested to service these on occasion.

(iv)            The Council undertakes contractual work with small, medium and large size builders. The Finance Department undertake risk assessments to ascertain if contractors will be in a position to complete work before contracts are awarded.

(v)              Contracts awarded to service providers included questions regarding training and apprenticeship opportunities offered by these companies. The Council’s expectation was that contractors who took on more work should offer more training and apprenticeship opportunities.

(vi)            Contractual work was allocated through task orders. Contractors were not guaranteed work through their contracts. Therefore the Council could allocate work to contractors through task orders without contractual penalties. This enabled Cambridge City Council to operate a joined up maintenance contract with South Cambridgeshire District Council from 2014, although the City Council’s existing contract with Apollo and Kier did not expire until 2016.

(vii)          Individual Task orders were funded either the general fund or the HRA and it would be possible to maintain a split.

 

The Asset Manager requested a change to the recommendations. The Asset Manager formally proposed to delete (struck out text listed below) from recommendation 2.8 in the Officer’s report:

·        To approve (subject to successful bids for resources to be made in the 2013/14 bid process) the recruitment of 3.5 full time equivalent additional contract management surveyors and 2 full time equivalent asset officers within the Estates and Facilities Asset Management team in order to manage the delivery of additional capital investment.

 

The Committee approved this amendment unanimously.

 

The Committee resolved 6 votes to 0 to endorse the recommendations as amended.

 

The Executive Councillor approved the recommendations.

 

Conflicts of Interest Declared by the Executive Councillor (and any Dispensations Granted)

Not applicable.