Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors M Burton and D Day.  Councillor Winslade was in attendance as substitute for Councillor M Burton.

At this point Members must declare whether they have an interest, whether personal or prejudicial, in any of the items on the agenda. Members must also declare if they are subject to their party group whip in relation to any items under consideration.

No declarations of interest were made.

The minutes of the meeting held on 20 July 2009 were approved as a correct record.

The decision notice for each decision will bear the date on which it is published and will specify that the decision may then be implemented on the expiry of three working days after the publication of the decision (not including the date of publication), unless a request for call-in of the decision is received from any two Members of a scrutiny committee or scrutiny commission.  If a request for call-in of a decision is received, implementation of the decision remains suspended for consideration by the relevant scrutiny committee or Scrutiny Commission for Health Issues..

There were no requests for call-in to consider.

The Committee considered the responses made by the Executive to our recommendations from the last meeting.

The recommendations related to the disposal of land and assets.

ACTION AGREED

To note the responses to the recommendations made.

Peterborough City Services (PCS) was an entity which had become increasingly vulnerable to elements of competition on parts of its service portfolio as a result of increasing costs and budgetary pressures.  Whilst it was relatively simple for PCS to stop undertaking certain functions, the consequences might reduce the viability of PCS, and over the long term this could raise questions over the department as a whole. 

In order to ensure that PCS maintained its competitive edge and continued to provide good value to the Council, a review of the options for the service was undertaken in 2008.  The review concluded that the best way forward for PCS was to operate at arms length from the Council with the potential for the Council to maintain some type of involvement or interest in the business.  The initial thinking at that time was that the appropriate mechanism would be the creation of a framework similar to that created for some housing and other services in other Local Authorities - an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO).  However, with the impact of the credit crunch and the management team’s recognition of its own areas that needed strengthening, a Joint Venture with a private sector organisation or some other collaborative or partnership style of working or special purpose vehicle might now be the most appropriate way forward. 

A view was taken that in testing the market place for the Council’s future waste arrangements that we would also gauge interest in the PCS operations.  The Council had held an Industry Open Day earlier this year and invited the private sector to offer views on how it felt it could work to help develop and deliver the services that PCS performed.  Accordingly the Council invited interested bidders to register their interest in entering into a competitive dialogue to look at collaborative, partnership or other styles of working with the Council to provide those services.  In addition, a parallel procurement exercise was underway for an anaerobic digestion facility to deal with food waste, which would be collected by PCS through its waste collection service.  The Council was currently in the process of assessing the Pre Qualification Questionnaires (PQQs) submitted by interested bidders with a view to drawing up a shortlist of potential bidders with whom the Council could enter into a competitive dialogue process.  In the case of Lot 3, PCS operational services, the Council was looking to invite six bidders to be taken through to the next stage – this would be made up of three bidders who were interested in a mix of all the Lots and three who were interested in Lot 3 (PCS) only.  The process had been structured in this way to enable the Council to compare individual bids against combined bids with a view to getting best value and solution out of the procurement exercise for the Council.  A decision on the shortlist, which would be made by the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment Capital and Culture, was likely to be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Deputy Chief Executive presented a report on the current position of the Growth Area Funding (GAF) programme and the intended direction and expenditure until March 2011.  The programme was delivering a variety of schemes, some of which were important enablers for the city’s wider growth ambitions as laid out in the Sustainable Community Strategy.  The GAF3 programme was a series of projects running between 2008/9 and 2010/11 that ranged in value from £30k to £6m.  

In September 2008, a revised GAF3 bid was submitted to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) by Opportunity Peterborough on behalf of the Council.  This was a necessary step in confirming funding for 09/10 and 10/11.  The bid had been comprehensive in setting out the growth context for the City as well detailing thirty-one project proposals that requested a total of £25.3m.  The total GAF3 award confirmed in December 2008 was £21.5m, broken down across the 2008/9 to 2010/11 period as:

·     2008/9 - £7,819,955

·     2009/10 -  £6,838,274

·     2010/11 - £6,847,559

Whilst the 2008/9 money had been received, the remaining figures were only indicative.  On the 15 June 2009, the 2009/10 figure was confirmed, but on the 17 July 2009, DCLG wrote to all of the GAF3 accountable bodies informing them of proposed reductions to the 2010/11 figures.  For Peterborough, this meant that the 2010/11 allocation would now be £3,866,918 – a loss of £2,980,641, or about 43.5% for the year.  The total GAF3 allocation had therefore dropped from £21.5m to £18.5m.  The programme was then revised to ensure that it would not become overspent and so that changes to the original bid were taken into account. 

The current GAF3 programme was detailed in the table below, including the total capital and revenue allocations as well as the amounts of these spent to date. 

The report detailed information which had been requested on the process for awarding a number of recent contracts.  The contracts were:

• The Paddling Pool in Central Park
• The Bretton Parish Council Office
• The Pavilion/Public Toilets in Bretton Park
• The Aviary in Central Park

Officers had provided information in relation to:

1)                  Were contract details advertised or sent to preferred contractors only?

2)                  Would any enquiry be accompanied by a set of drawings and a detailed specification or would contractor be asked to actually design and build?

3)                  How many quotations were obtained and from whom?

4)                  Are quotations based on a fixed price or bill of quantities?

5)                  If a bill of quantities, what were the projected quantities and the final contract price?

The individual contracts had been awarded under the Eastern Regional Term Maintenance Contract which had been let in August 2008.  The contracts commenced on 1 September 2008 and would expire on 31 August 2012.  Two contracts were awarded as follows:

Building Maintenance and Installations

L Garfield Builders Ltd

PeterboroughCity Services

Bull and Company Ltd

Kier Building Services Engineers

Electrical and Mechanical Maintenance and Installations

A G Aylward EMS Ltd

Princebuild Ltd

Kier Building Services Engineers

The process for awarding the Term Maintenance Contracts had been an exhaustive one but had enabled the Council to save significant amounts of resources on works to buildings.  For projects up to £18,000 the work was operated on a schedule of rates and anything over that amount and up to £150,000 was awarded following a mini-tendering exercise.  The purpose of this approach was to ensure value for money as work was able to get done quickly and more efficiently.

Observations and questions were raised around the following areas:

• There was concern that for the Aviary in Central Park only one quotation was requested.  Could this be open to abuse if the contractor did not have to bid against others for the work?  The contractor was required to justify their price against the national schedule of rates with the appropriate discount applied.
• Fixed price quotations from 3 or 4 contractors may be cheaper as a bill of quantities could be more expensive.  The Term Maintenance Contract had led to savings as we were not required to go through a full tendering exercise each time.  The Procurement Team would be able to explain why this was the most appropriate method to use.
• Effective use of the schedule of rates was dependent on the quality of the surveyor supervising the work.  Each bill submitted by the contractor was itemised and the surveyor was required to sign off each job.  They would not sign it off if they were not satisfied.  The Council had saved several thousands of pounds compared to the previous process as it had driven down costs and kept overheads to a minimum.
• A Framework agreement was not uncommon.  Contractors had already been vetted and it allowed the Council to go directly to the contractor as they had already been through  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The latest version of the Forward Plan, showing details of the key decisions that the Leader of the Council believed the Cabinet or individual Cabinet Members would be making over the next four months, was received.

The item on the Integrated Development Programme would be considered by the Committee in November.

ACTION AGREED

That the item on the Integrated Development Programme would be considered at our next meeting.

We considered the Work Programme for 2009/10.

ACTION AGREED

To confirm the work programme 2009/10, subject to the inclusion of the Integrated Development Programme.

Monday 16 November 2009

Monday 16 November 2009 at 7pm.