This meeting of the Cabinet Member Signing, with Councillor Sarah Williams as the cabinet member, was scheduled to discuss an extension to the disrepair contract. The report pack also notes that there would be a discussion on excluding the press and public from the meeting for a portion of the meeting.

Disrepair Contract

The main item for consideration was the extension of existing contracts with four suppliers: DCK Construction Limited, ICB General Build and Civil Eng Ltd, Foster Property Maintenance Ltd and Milestone South East Ltd. These contracts are for the provision of repair services to reduce the backlog of disrepair cases within the borough.

As a social landlord, Haringey Council maintains a social housing stock, which is subject to legal claims for disrepair. The council entered into contracts with repairs contractors to complete the works associated with those claims. The report pack states that the spend for each contractor is up to £499,999 with a contract duration up to 2 years. The contract commenced on 4 November 2024 and was scheduled to expire on 4 November 2025 with an option to extend by one year to 4 November 2026.

The report pack notes that these contract values were expected to be exhausted within late Q1, early Q2 of 2025/26 and require extension of value to match the approved budget to ensure that service delivery is not impacted.

The recommendations included in the report pack were:

• Extensions of contracts to the four suppliers, with 100% extensions for DCK Construction Ltd and Milestone South East Limited, and 43% extensions for ICB General Build and Civil Eng Ltd and Foster Property Maintenance Ltd.
• That the extension would allow the service to put in place suitable medium to long term contracts, following a procurement exercise expected to be completed by Q4, to prevent service delivery and financial risks associated with failure to complete work at an adequate scale and frequency.

The report pack stated that it is essential to maintain continuity of high frequency repairs completions in disrepair cases, as this is the main action by which legal costs are reduced. It also noted that it is a strategic objective of the council to clear the historic works backlog and then maintain pace with newer cases, to achieve a lower cost per case.

The report pack also considered alternative options:

• Doing nothing and allowing contract sums to exhaust with no replacement. This option was rejected because this would leave ongoing legal cases without an appropriate facility to complete works at the required scale to meet the overarching strategic objectives, to reduce claims and the costs associated with them.
• Utilising the DLO¹ to deliver works. This option was rejected as the DLO is already under significant pressure to deliver the Responsive Repairs Service.
• Procuring new contracts without first extending existing contracts. This option was rejected as contractors have become fluent with the council's working practices and requirements.

The Director of Legal and Governance (Monitoring Officer) was consulted in the preparation of this report.

Exclusion of the press and public

The agenda included a motion to exclude the press and public from the meeting during a discussion of the exempt report on the disrepair contract. The reason given was that the report contains exempt information as defined in Section 100a of the Local Government Act 1972² (as amended by Section 12A of the Local Government Act 1985); paras 3 and 5, namely information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information) and information in respect of which a claim to legal professional privilege could be maintained in legal proceedings.