Agenda item

Update on Contracts

Minutes:

The Committee:

· approved the public advertisement of tenders, as per Standing Order 37a, as detailed in Table 1 below;

· approved the award of Single Tender Actions, in line with Standing Order 55 exceptions, as detailed in Table 2 below;

· approved the modification of the contract, as per Standing Order 37a, as detailed in Table 3 below;

· noted the award of retrospective Single Tender Actions, in line with Standing Order 55 exceptions, as detailed in Table 4 below; and

· agreed that the next quarterly report on employees on temporary contracts and agency staff include detailed information on those off-contracts for the recruitment of temporary staff for posts which could not be filled by the current contracted provider.

Table 1: Competitive Tenders

Title of Tender	Proposed Contract Duration	Est. Max Contract Value	SRO	Short Description of Goods / Services
Office Supplies (including copier paper, and IT consumables) Approximately contract value for all Councils across 4 years. BCC spend approximately £690,000 across 4 years.	Up to 4 years	£2,478,000	T. Wallace	The Council will be procuring, on behalf of all councils in NI, a contract for the supply and delivery of various office supplies. The new contract will include a 2% retrospective contract rebate payable to BCC (as a contract management fee).
Implementation of two modules from the F5 security suite	Up to 3 years	£48,000	P. Gribben	Protection of the Council network and controlled access for suppliers and staff with non-Council devices.
General Building Services	Up to 3 years	£225,000	S. Grimes	The provision of building works not carried out by the Property Maintenance Unit including internal demolition, alterations, concrete work, brickwork, plastering, tiling etc.
Electrical Remedial Repairs	Up to 3 years	£180,000	S. Grimes	To ensure all insurance electrical remedials are carried out to keep Council properties compliance with regulations.
Portable Appliance Testing ‘PAT’	Up to 3 years	£75,000	S. Grimes	The Council requires the necessary PAT inspection and testing to ensure that electrical equipment is maintained properly so as to prevent risk of injury.
Arboriculture Services	Up to 5 years	£4,000,000	D. Sales	The current contractor is unable to meet the resource capacity obligatory to facilitate the Councils arboriculture requirements and we will not be renewing their current contract beyond 31 March 2024. We are requesting that we start work on a new Arboriculture tender and break the new tender into three smaller lots across the city to encourage greater competition and ensure the Council has adequate resource capacity going forward.
Supply and delivery of fertilisers, pesticides and grass seed	Up to 5 years	£550,000	D. Sales	Fertilisers, pesticides and grass seed required for the maintenance and development of sports facilities, parks and open spaces within Open spaces and street scene.
The distribution of City Matters (Belfast City Council’s resident’s magazine) *Approved March 2023 for 2 years, now reviewed to 3 years (no additional cost)	Up to 3 years	£140,000	E. McConville	Secure and effective delivery of City Matters is required for over 160k homes in Belfast and boundary areas within the Belfast City Council district area.
Integrated software solution/ In-cab technology for fleet telematics and vehicle routing	Up to 10 years	£4,300,000	C Matthews	To replace the existing fleet telematics system and limited routing functionality (both currently provided under separate STAs) with an integrated and more comprehensive solution in line with organisational needs.

Table 2: Single Tender Actions

Title	Duration	Est. Max Contract Value	SRO	Description	Supplier	STA Reason Code
MTC Mechanical Services Cover	Up to 3 months	£150,000	S. Grimes	This tender/contract has experienced ongoing issues due to a previous legal challenge which prevented the award of contract. This STA is required to ensure continuity of service until the completion of the tender evaluation process with handover/implementation of the new contract. This will ensure the incumbent contractor WJM Building Services Ltd will continue to carry out essential mechanical services including callouts, repairs and planned maintenance until the new contract is in place.	WJM Building Services Ltd.	11
Continued use of the HR and Payroll System	Up to 2 years	£313,325	S. McNicholl	STA is required to allow for the continued processing of payroll for all BCC employees and Councillors and for implementation of Time and Attendance for BCC Employees. Zellis are the only supplier for associated licenses and maintenance support of the HR Payroll System.	Zellis UK Ltd	3
Provision of a Carnival Parade / Pageant for St Patrick’s Day 2023	Up to 1 year	£45,000	J. Greer	A formal tender process was carried out which resulted in a NIL return (Lot 1 under T2441 tender competition). A direct award is being made to a company with experience in delivering parades of this nature.	Luxe	1

Table 3: Modification to Contract

Title of Contract	Duration	Modification	SRO	Description	Supplier
T2077 Delivery of Enterprise Awareness Activities	Up to 3 years	Additional 3 months	J. Greer	There will be a continued need to provide business plan assessments over the next 3 months and requires an extension of contract length with no further budget allocation.	Podiem Ltd
T1872 Provision of animal healthcare services at Belfast Zoo	Up to 64 months	Additional 2 months	J. Greer	An additional 2-months is required to ensure continuity of service whilst tender process is completed.	Jubilee Veterinary Centre
T2377 Provision of catering services (retail and small to medium sized events) at Belfast Castle This is a concession contract with estimated annual gross revenue of £1,180,000 for the contractor (based on pre-Covid figures), of which a minimum 5% commission will be payable to the Council.	Up to 1 year	Additional 4 months	J. Greer	A contract modification is required to allow for a new tender process to be completed. Work is currently underway to review and update the current specification in line with Departmental requirements and to advertise the tender.	Ulster Supported Employment Limited (USEL)
T2422 Provision of catering services (retail and small to medium sized events) at Malone House This is a concession contract with estimated annual gross revenue of £435,000 for the contractor (based pre-Covid figures), of which a minimum 5% commission will be payable to the Council.	Up to 8 months	Additional 4 months	J. Greer	A contract modification is required to allow for a new tender process to be completed. Work is currently underway to review and update the current specification in line with Departmental requirements and to advertise the tender.	Café Nosh

Table 4: Retrospective Single Tender Actions

Title of Contract

Duration

Est. Max Contract Value

SRO

Description

Supplier

STA Reason Code

Requirement for temp Partnership Support Officer in the PCSP Team

Up to 12 months

£62,400

D. Sales

The existing contracted provider for T1792 Provision of Temporary Agency Resources: Matrix SCM were unable to fulfil the required role of Partnership Support Officer within the contractually agreed time period.

Honeycomb Recruitment

Annual property asset valuations

*Previously approved March 2023 for £165,000 for 3 years, now reviewed discussions/ negotiations with LPS.

Up to 5 years

£310,000

S. Grimes

LPS are the only suitable supplier who can deliver the service BCC requires due to conflicts of interest that exist with other local estate agents.

LPS

STA/ Direct Award Reasons

Reason Code	Reasons in line with Public Contact Regulations
1	No response following advertised procurement exercise.
2	Creation or acquisition of a unique work of art or artistic performance.
3	Competition is absent for technical reasons (no reasonable substitute exists).
4	The protection of exclusive rights, including intellectual property rights.
5	Extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by BCC, the time limits for a procurement cannot be complied with.
6	Products manufactured purely for the purpose of research, experimentation, study or development.
7	Additional deliveries which are intended either as a partial or extended replacement of supplies or installations where a change of supplier would result in supplies of different technical characteristics causing incompatibility or disproportionate technical difficulties in operation and maintenance.
8	Supplies quoted and purchased on a commodity market.
9	Supplies or services on particularly time-limited advantageous terms e.g. supplier winding up its business activities.
10	New works and services consisting of the repetition of similar works or services, provided that the possibility of a direct award is disclosed during the original tender process.
11	Other – Reason not in line with Public Contract Regulations (PCR 2015).