Purpose

Cabinet is recommended to authorise an allowable 50% increase to the value of the existing Professional Civil Engineering Services (2024-28) Term Contract (to be exclusively funded at expense of third-party grant / income monies conferred).

Decision

Cabinet approved an increase in the value of the Professional Civil Engineering (Consultancy) Services (2024 – 2028) Term Contract with The Project Centre Limited by 50% (£2.4 million) from the published £4.8 million value to total £7.2 million value.

Options & Alternatives Considered

A comprehensive options / alternatives appraisal has been undertaken and is summarised immediately below (paragraphs 4.2 – 4.4 inclusive).

The Council could adopt a pre-existing framework contract owned and operated by a third party/ies. This option possesses the potential to relegate the Council to ‘second-tier’ client status; notwithstanding this observation the viability of the option referred to here is being considered to inform additional commissioning options and services provision contingency planning.

The Council could instead adopt the Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) at its disposal or otherwise issue stand-alone invitations to quote and/or ‘spot’ tender against proposed commissions. This approach, however, would require observation of prescribed protocols which compromise commissioning agility and obstruct the Council’s ability to address urgent requirements whilst precluding realisation of economies-of-scale in addition to compromising consistency – and surety – of contractor quality and availability whilst being unnecessarily onerous and resource-sapping to operate.

The Council could, alternatively, directly recruit suitably qualified, specialist, professional personnel in order to address required competency and capacity requirements. However, unpredictable resource requirements and anomalous workloads substantially compromise cost and resourcing flexibility in addition to placing excessive infrastructure demands – embracing accommodation and ICT considerations – upon the Council.

‘Doing nothing’ is not a viable option – without access to quality, value-led, flexible civil engineering consultancy services the authority would not be able to attract substantial inward capital investment and sustain vibrant neighbourhood economies.