Purpose

West Sussex County Council
(WSCC) has a duty to manage information throughout its life cycle,
from creation or receipt to eventual disposition. This duty demands
that we care for records, keep them securely, provide appropriate
access when required and ensure safe destruction at the end of
defined retention periods. The recent flood at Durban House caused
damage to almost 3000 boxes of modern records.
 
Harwell Document Restoration
Services (“Harwell”) is a specialist supplier and
already has a contract in place with West Sussex County Council to
react to emergencies. However, the retained contract value does not
cover the value anticipated following this flood event. This report
seeks approval from the Cabinet Member for Community Support, Fire
and Rescue to award the restoration contract to Harwell Document
Restoration Services up to a value of
£1,005,625.50+VAT.
 
Due to the need for this matter
to be determined as soon as possible, the decision maker has secured agreement from the
Communities, Highways and Environment Scrutiny Committee
Chairman for this
decision to be taken without prior notice in the Forward Plan of
key decisions (as per the West Sussex County Council Constitution -
Part 4, Section 1, Standing Order 3.57 (Regulation 11), because
the need to undertake modern record damage repair work is time
critical as delay will destroy records that could otherwise be
restored.
 

Decision

The Cabinet Member for Community Support, Fire
and Rescue has approved the award of contract for modern record
restoration to Harwell Document Restoration Services.