Decision details

On the 7th February 23, a report was presented to Commercial Board on the level of non-compliant spend within Housing and Commercial Property. The report highlighted 38 contracts with a total value of circa £4.9m. These contracts are also on informal contract agreements, meaning there is no formal contract in place, which creates a number of high-level risks for the Council.
A number of these contracts could be in scope for the future Repairs and Maintenance Contract, which is due to go live on the 1st July 2025. Any solution would need to ensure it does not restrict the Council’s options for the future contract.
Following a review of the contracts, it was agreed that the Council would direct award the contracts to incumbent providers due to:
a) The high level of risk the Council are carrying through not having a formal contract in place;
b) The timescales required to carry out a tender process will mean the Council will continue to carry the risks for 6 months plus;
c) The lack of market interest in these contracts given the short contract period the Council can commit to;
d) The good level of service the incumbent providers are providing;
As part of the process, due diligence checks have been carried out on all providers. Some contractors were removed due to their current trading status and poor credit ratings. Where there is a gap in service delivery, the Council will look to bring in contractors from compliant Framework Agreements.
On the 17th October 23, approval was provided by Cabinet to:
1)Award 22 contracts under Phase 1 of the project.
2)Delegate authority to the Strategic Director of Housing and Property Services to award contracts across 7 contract categories. This includes contract awards for the Heating and Ventilation contracts, which will be awarded via a compliant procurement process.
Appendix 1 sets out the contracts to be awarded for Phase 2 of the project.

To approve the award of the contracts in Appendix 1 for Phase 2 of the Interim Contract Strategy Project.

The Council considered tendering these contracts however the Council decided to formalise the contracts for the following reasons:
a) The high level of risk the Council are carrying through not having a formal contract in place;
b) The timescales required to carry out a tender process will mean the Council will continue to carry the risks for 6 months plus;
c) The lack of market interest in these contracts given the short contract period the Council can commit to;
d) The good level of service the incumbent providers are providing;