Purpose

 Approval to re-procure a Dynamic Purchasing System to facilitate creation and management of Home to School Travel Contracts

Decision

RESOLVED:

KEY DECISION

That the Executive:

a)     Authorised the work to start for the procurement of an Open Framework for Travel to School and Social Care travel services.

b)     Delegated authority to the Executive Director of Place, in consultation with the Executive Member for Highways and Travel, to take all necessary actions to procure an Open Framework for Travel to School and Social Care travel services and all future call offs from with the framework.

c)     Approved the variation of the Home to School Transport Dynamic Purchasing (DPS) contract (number 18120002943) to increase the value by up to 50% of the original value. The increased value is £34.5 million. (covered in sections 5.8 to 5.10 of the report).

Reasons for Recommendations:

•         The recommendations presented the most cost effective and practical solution available to the Council to procure transport services to meet the demands of the statutory service and any discretionary transport services the Council may decide to offer in line with the legislation and Council policy

•         Without a valid contract in place against which to call-off individual contracts and requirements the service would be unable to deliver the Council’s statutory duties to aid in accessing school to those children and young people entitled to assistance under the legislation;

•         By delegating authority to the Executive Director of Place and Executive Member for Highways and Travel delays with procurement can be mitigated and the procurement process can remain agile;

•         Approval of the variation ensured that the Council could continue to award transport contracts through the existing arrangements whilst the replacement open framework is procured and implemented, thereby mitigating the risk of service disruption and delivery of this statutory service.

Alternative Options Considered:

a)     Do Nothing: It takes in the region of 12 months to set up a new open framework contract.  Without action now, the Council would utilise the remaining capacity of the current DPS before a new framework could be created, leaving the Council unable to procure transport services and thus in breach of its statutory duties.

b)     Utilise a Closed Framework: Closed Frameworks?are fixed-term agreements (typically 4 years for public sector, 8 years for utilities/defence) where only pre-selected suppliers can participate. Like the Open Framework model, this can be used to award contracts either directly or through a?mini competition?among pre-approved suppliers. The key difference is that no new suppliers can join once the framework is established, restricting access to the pool of Service Providers to only those in existence at the time of creation of the framework.  With the size and nature of the current Taxi and Bus market, it was felt inappropriate to restrict participation to only those operators in existence at the time of the initial procurement exercise as this would increasingly restrict competition as the framework matured.

c)   Utilise a Dynamic Market: The 2023 Act introduced Dynamic Markets (DM), which are similar to dynamic purchasing systems (DPS), in that they are a list of qualified suppliers who are eligible to participate in future procurements. Historical data suggested that individual contracts will fall below the regulated threshold. On that basis, this route was not a suitable option as you cannot use DM to award regulated below threshold contracts.