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Summary
This meeting will include discussions on a range of topics, including the waste recovery park, the activity reward scheme, adult social care, and the central library.
Re-Procurement of Contractor for Milton Keynes Waste Recovery Park (MKWRP)
The current contract for the running of Milton Keynes Waste Recovery Park is due to expire in 2026. The Council are seeking to procure a new contract to operate and maintain the existing facility. To make this commercially attractive they are proposing a three-phase contract with varying degrees of risk transfer. The first 'Discovery' phase would last for 12-24 months and focus on the new contractor familiarising themselves with the plant and its operation, with the Council taking on most of the risk and paying the contractor's costs directly. In the second 'Steady State' phase, lasting for 6-12 months, the contractor would be expected to take on more risk, with more of the operational costs becoming fixed, giving both the Council and the contractor more price certainty. In the final 'Optimise' phase, the contractor would be expected to take on a still greater degree of risk, jointly developing and implementing initiatives with the Council to optimise the site's operations and share in the resulting rewards.
The Council have already conducted pre-market engagement with a range of potential contractors, and have conducted a soft market test, receiving feedback from four unnamed companies. The issues discussed during those events are summarised in the document and include topics such as appropriate contract length, the mechanism for moving between the phases, the allocation of risk, how commercially sensitive information should be handled, and how to manage changes in environmental law during the contract.
The Council have identified that the Emissions Trading Scheme may pose a financial risk to the project, but have not yet decided how best to manage that risk. They say:
ETS would be an Authority risk. Would suggest a termination mechanism in the event ETS makes [the] contractor unaffordable on a [per-tonne] party
They are also seeking to explore the potential for selling heat from the plant to a local district heating network.1
Repairs and Improvements to Milton Keynes Central Library
The report pack contains a request for £3.6m to be spent on repairs and improvements to Milton Keynes Central Library. The majority of this spend, £2.5m, would be on replacing the existing roof. The works are urgent:
The building is not currently watertight and does not have a working lift (due to recent water ingress from the roof) therefore the procurement of this project is urgent to ensure the building is watertight before next winter.
The remaining £1.1m would be spent on remodelling the interior of the building to improve its suitability for use by families with young children, making the Community Learning MK (CLMK)2 adult education service more accessible, and enhancing the library's general suitability for the community.
The report pack includes the suggestion that the project be directly awarded to Ashe Construction Limited, who recently completed several successful projects for the Council.
MK Activity Reward Scheme
The report pack contains a request to restart the MK Activity Reward Scheme, which provides residents with type 2 diabetes smart watches and vouchers to encourage them to increase their physical activity, and to improve their health. The scheme had to be paused in October 2024 after iPrescribe Digital Exercise3, the contractor who had been appointed to run it, went into administration.
The report pack requests that the Council enter into a partnership with Loughborough University4 to develop an app to support the scheme, procuring £0.3m worth of smart watches and £1.05m worth of vouchers. The partnership will be funded using a grant provided by Milton Keynes University Hospital5 under section 256 of the National Health Service Act 2006.6
Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS)
The report pack contains a request to appoint Consultancy+ to manage the employment of locum Best Interest Assessors7 (BIA) to help the Council comply with their statutory Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards8 (DoLS) duties. The Council transitioned to using locum BIAs several years ago, but the current arrangements for managing their employment are not compliant with HMRC's off-payroll working rules. Consultancy+ would be appointed for one year via the Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation procurement framework while a longer term solution is developed.
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District heating networks pipe hot water from a central source to a cluster of homes or businesses. They are often associated with efforts to decarbonise heating. ↩
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CLMK is an adult education service run by Milton Keynes Council. ↩
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iPrescribe Digital Exercise was a private company that provided digital physical activity prescriptions. ↩
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Loughborough University is a public research university in the East Midlands of England. ↩
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Milton Keynes University Hospital is an NHS Foundation Trust, a type of NHS body that has more freedom from central government control than other NHS bodies. ↩
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Section 256 of the NHS Act 2006 allows NHS bodies to make grants to other organisations to support their own work. ↩
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Best Interests Assessors are qualified social workers or nurses who determine whether depriving someone of their liberty is in their best interest. ↩
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The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards are a set of rules designed to protect the rights of people who lack mental capacity. They apply when someone is deprived of their liberty in a care home or hospital. ↩
Decisions to be made in this meeting
Attendees



Topics
No topics have been identified for this meeting yet.
Meeting Documents
Additional Documents