Agenda item

That Cabinet approve:

1. the virement of £1.5m from the Strategic Acquisitions budget to the MSCP budget; and

2. the awarding of the contract to Huber Car Park Systems International GmbH for the construction of the MSCP.

Decision

That Cabinet approve:

1. the virement of £1.5m from the Strategic Acquisitions budget to the MSCP budget; and

2. the awarding of the contract to Huber Car Park Systems International GmbH for the construction of the MSCP.

Reason for decision

To seek Cabinet approval to approve the budget virement and award a contract for the construction of the MSCP in Berkhamsted.

Corporate objectives

·      Building strong and vibrant communities

·      Ensuring economic growth and prosperity

·         Delivering an efficient and modern council

Monitoring Officer/S.151 Officer comments

Monitoring Officer:  

Under the Access to Information Regulations and the Council’s Constitution the Council is normally required to give 28 days’ notice where the Council intends to make a key decision.  The Regulations and the Constitution contain urgency provisions which can be used where a key decision is urgent. 

This can be done in two different ways.

·         The Council can take an urgent key decision without giving 28 days’ notice where it is impracticable to give the full notice, provided that the Council gives at least five days’ clear notice to all members of the relevant Overview and Scrutiny Committee of the authority (the “general exception” rule); or

• where a key decision is so urgent there is not even time to give five clear days’ notice, the Council can take the decision if the Chairman of the relevant Overview and Scrutiny Committee has agreed that the key decision is urgent and cannot reasonably be deferred (the “special urgency” rule).

This notice requirement applies whether the key decision is to be taken by the Cabinet at a meeting, by the Executive Leader, another Cabinet Member or by an officer without a meeting taking place.

The Council intends via this urgent Cabinet decision to make a decision to award the contract for the Berkhamsted Multi-Storey Car Park.

The approval of the contract award is urgent to enable the Council to award the contract and secure the contract price but also to secure the contractor to enable them to commit to delivering the contract within a reasonable timeframe; however, it is still possible to give 5 days’ notice to all members of the relevant overview and scrutiny committee (Finance and Resources) and therefore the “general exception” rule applies.  5 days’ notice has been given to all members of the Finance and Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee in compliance with this rule.

Part 4- under “Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules”: “Call-in and Urgency”

Call-in can be disapplied where the decision is urgent; the decision will be urgent if any delay likely to be caused by the call-in process would seriously prejudice the Council’s or the public’s interests. The decision is an urgent one and therefore should not be subject to call-in in order to enable the Council to award the contract and secure the contract price and the contractor for the works. In the absence of the Mayor (on leave), the deputy Mayor has agreed both that the decision proposed is reasonable in all the circumstances and that it is to be treated as a matter of urgency.

The matter, including the reasons for urgency, will be reported at the next available Council meeting.

S.151 Officer

This is a s151 Officer report.

Advice

Councillor Elliot introduced the report and said that this report was to combine the budgets for this project and award the contract for the multi-storey car park.

B Hosier said there was a delay in awarding the contract due to the extended procurement process. Typically , a tender evaluation process for a contract of this type would take  four weeks but due to the increased number of clarification questions for bidders it has extended to 12 weeks. The main reason for this delay has been the proximity of the site to residential and commercial units and Waitrose meaning that the council needed to be absolutely certain on the construction methods to ensure that access routes would be kept open. The urgency of this report is due to there being a number of other tenders the  successful bidder is awaiting to hear from and the need for the Council to secure the project construction programme to commence in 2018. They contractor will be on site by September 2018. The budget for the project is £5.1 million: £3.6 million for the construction and £1.5 million for strategic acquisitions.

Councillor Harden arrived at 6.03pm

Councillor G Sutton said that the price of steel had increased significantly, would the budget increase if there was another rise in prices?

B hosier said the price of the project was now fixed.

Councillor Marshall asked if this price was fixed for materials.

B Hosier said yes. Once the contract is awarded, the company will place an order for the materials they need.

Councillor Marshall referred back to the price of steel. What if there was a significant increase after the contract was awarded?

B Hosier said steel prices last increased on 2^nd January. If there was a major shift in the market, then the company may discuss any increase in the cost however there is currently no foreseen increase.

Councillor Marshall said she accepted the need to investigate the precise program of companies but this was known prior to the tender going out. Could this not have been built in knowing the sensitivities of the site?

B Hosier said that this was a valid point and he would look at extending the evaluation process for larger projects in the future.

Voting

None