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Agenda item

Annual Contracts Review 2017/18

Report of the Interim Chief Procurement Officer.

Minutes:

5.1       Maria Benbow, Interim Chief Procurement Officer, introduced the Annual Contracts Review report. The reporting format had been updated to focus on the Executive Leadership Team who are responsible for the overall management of the Council, for setting and monitoring overall direction, ensuring high performance and for overall risk and reputation management.

 

5.2       The report also highlighted a number of areas where Procurement Services are working to support the Council to deliver best value, in terms of professional development of staff, contract management and transition to the new Integrated Business Centre for finance and HR.

 

5.3       The review outlined the contracts let by the Council for value for money and adherence to the procurement code. The committee noted that 104 contracts commenced during the 2017/18 period. Fifty one contracts were below the value of £100,000 threshold and fifty three over the value of £100,000. There were nine extensions of existing contracts.  This latter represented a reduction compared to the previous year. In exceptional circumstances a waiver to the requirements of the Procurement Code may be obtained from the Chief Procurement Officer.  Seventy two waivers were approved during the course of the year.  This represented an increase to the previous year.

 

5.4       The report highlighted that the capitalEsourcing contracts register is regarded as the “single source of truth” and forms the basis for reporting on contract information across the Council.

 

5.5       Members expressed concern that only 51% of all contracts (65 of 127) over the value of £100,000 had been assessed and performance rated within the system during the year, a downward trend on the previous year. Compliance varied significantly between service areas.  The committee noted that of the 62 contracts that have not been performance rated, 25 had a value over £1.5m. Whilst Officers provided assurances that large value contracts were being evaluated locally, Members commented that in the absence of a complete set of data it was difficult for the committee to properly fulfil its statutory role in this respect. The Chief Executive undertook to investigate why compliance in reporting by service areas was not being achieved. The committee requested that a standing update is provided to each future meeting on progress in achieving compliance.

 

5.6       Officers were referred to the fact that quite a number of waiver requests were received for a change to the mandatory evaluation criteria either due to the use of framework agreements whereby the terms stipulate alternative criteria or following extensive market research.  Members asked about the thoroughness of the market research undertaken.  Andrew Polley, Head of Category Management, advised that this is commensurate with the level of risk associated with the procurement. 

 

5.7       Members stressed the added importance of contract monitoring during the transition between contractors.  Officers were referred to the fact that in June 2017 CWH appointed two long term major works contractors and five new repairs contractors.  The exiting contractor had left a backlog of approximately 2000 outstanding jobs (representing 2 week’s work). This placed an additional pressure on the new contractor while establishing its workforce. 

 

5.8       The Committee asked why Westminster’s public conveniences were not referenced in the contract activity within City Management and Communities in 2017-18.  The Chief Executive explained that the Council’s public toilets are being operated by Carlisle under a lease agreement rather than via a contract.  Members asked whether the Council would need to buy back the leases.  The Chief Executive advised that a piece of work around the ongoing arrangements for the City Council’s public conveniences is being progressed by the Interim Executive Director for City Management and Communities and the Cabinet Member for Finance, Housing and Regeneration.  Members suggested that it would be useful to examine the lessons from this particular arrangement to help guide future service considerations.

 

5.9       Maria Benbow advised that the Procurement Service has initiated a Contract Management Programme to build on the tools and processes already in place to improve contract management across the organisation.  A PMO has been set up and will collect updates from all project leads, track completion of project activities and report status to the Advisory Board. She also advised that the service would shortly be commencing an end-to-end review of procurement processes.  She advised that next year’s report to the Committee will outline what processes have been changed and where improvements have been made.

 

5.10    ACTIONS:  The Committee would like to know which contracts received a waiver in 2017-18 and which of these had not been performance evaluated within capitalEsourcing.

 

 

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