Purpose

To approve the strategy procurement plan to
tender the appointment of an organisation to provide multi
disciplinary consultancy services

Decision

RESOLVED that
 
      
i.        
the
Executive approves this Strategic Procurement Plan to tender
the
appointment of a Design & Construction Multi-Disciplinary
Consultancy Services Contract.
 
    
ii.        
Approval
of this Strategic Procurement Plan authorises:
 
(i) a proposed contractual term for
a duration of up to ten years with an initial period of five years
and further 3 + 2 years based on key performance indicators of
optional extensions with a contract value of £12m for 10-year
contract.
 
(ii)
Design & Construction Multi-Disciplinary Consultancy Services
Contract to be procured from a single provider.

 
   
iii.        
the
Executive delegate authority to the Executive Director, Delivery
and the Executive Member for Finance and Business Change to award
the contract to the provider meeting the requirements of this
contract.

Reasons for the decision

      
i.        
It is a
requirement of the contract standing orders, that the Executive
approve any strategic procurement plan with a value more than
£1m. This decision seeks approval for the procurement
strategy.

 
    
ii.        
The
current Managing Partner framework expires on the 30 June 2025,
therefore there is a requirement to commission an external
organisation to provide Design & Construction
Multi-Disciplinary Consultancy Services Contract to implement and
manage the delivery of construction projects.

Alternative options considered

      
i.        
Consideration has been
given to seeking consultants on an individual project basis,
however when Bracknell Forest Council have undertaken this in the
past, it has proven to be a lengthy process. Involving numerous
organisations into our practice allows room for error, as the
continuity and the knowledge of the Councils stock is lost.
However, having a Design & Construction Support team
commissioned on a fixed term contract, ensures information on
procedures and condition of our buildings are kept up to
date.

 
    
ii.        
 After consulting with other Berkshire Councils, we
were informed that 3 of the Councils have inhouse consultancy staff
and procure specialist support as and when required through a
framework.
 
   
iii.        
One
Council had a professional services framework for Consultants on
architectural and design services which ran for 4 years and covered
Housing, Education and Corporate. This was procured through the
Portal ‘shortlisted’ 6 consultant firms to be on 4 year
Framework for which mini competitions were ran when projects came
to fruition. Some projects were procured as design and build, some
were separated and procured separately. These are then overseen by
a large internal Construction Project Management team. However, we
also use a Framework such as CCS/Fusion 21 for specific projects.
This option would not be suitable for BFC due to there not being a
large in-house team, holding the knowledge required.
 
   
iv.        
One of the
authorities has recently procured a contract, with 2 different
organisations, with 1 providing pre-contract services and the other
providing post-contract services. Due to a number of recent issues,
this Authority is looking at alternative options. Team members
moving from other authorities have tried this model, however it has
caused conflict and contractual issues between consultants and
would require significant resources to manage the contracts. There
could also be issues regarding where negligence claims
lay.
 
    
v.        
An option
is to create an inhouse multi-disciplinary consultancy team to
recruit a number of individuals, to design and manage projects
lower than £0.5m, which would equate to approx. salary costs
of £630k per annum, as shown in the table below. However,
there would still need to be some input from an external
organisation, to provide additional technical input, ie project management, public health engineers etc.
as and when required for each of the projects.
 
   
vi.        
Furthermore, the
ongoing difficulties in recruiting and retaining specialist
engineers and surveyors, within the construction industry would
undoubtedly result in a number of these roles remaining vacant and
incur additional costs using agency staff. In practice, some
specialisms listed would not warrant full-time roles and this would
further exacerbate the challenges and reduce value for money.
Therefore, internalisation of this service would not be a viable
solution.