Issue - meetings

Report of the Director for Housing, Regeneration and Planning. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills and Corporate Services.

This report will seek a decision on the award of a new contract for the Council's non-domestic water, waste water, and ancillary services that would commence in May 2022.

The Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills, and Corporate Services introduced the report which sought a decision on the award of a new contract for the Council's non-domestic water, waste water, and ancillary services that would commence in May 2022.

It was noted that there was already a contract with the existing provider, Wave, but that it had taken longer than anticipated to complete the onboarding process from the previous supplier. It was considered that the contract provided good value for money and that there would be significant costs associated with moving to a different supplier.

The Cabinet Member for Early Years, Children, and Families noted that 15 schools had opted in to the contract. She welcomed that further schools were anticipated to join and she hoped that as many schools as possible would opt in to the contract.

RESOLVED

To award under framework YPO001008 of the Water, Wastewater and Ancillary Services contract to Anglian Water Business (National) Ltd (trading as “Wave”) from 1 May 2022 until 30 September 2024. The total value of the contract over this period will be up to £1.5m.

Reasons for decision

The current supplier is performing well. Wave is providing regular and accurate billing files and resolving queries promptly. The contract is realising savings particularly through consolidated billing, where one electronic billing file is generated each month containing the billing data for all sites, rather than a paper bill being generated for each site.

It is taking significantly longer than originally anticipated to transfer all of the Council’s non-domestic water supplies from the incumbent supplier, Castle Water to Wave. It has taken a significant level of officer resource to resolve debt balances and supplier issues meaning that not all of the Council’s existing water supplies have transferred to the existing contract.

The price increase from the current contract to the new contract is c0.5%, representing good value for money. The Water retail market costs went up by an average of 2% (2019) and will next be reviewed by OFWAT in 2024. We were not impacted by the 2019 increase (as we were in contract). We feel that a 0.5% increase for this contract (2022 – 2024) therefore reflects the water market.

Based on the existing buildings currently on contract, indicative annual costs would be as in the below table. Additional corporate sites, including the recently in-sourced New River Sports Centre will join the contract and further schools are also expected to join. If other corporate buildings or schools join the Council’s contract, the Council does not expect that these costs will go above the threshold of £1.5m before 30^th September 2024.

The Council may also utilise the ancillary services available through the contract, so the overall contract value will be higher.

The price margins in the non-domestic water markets are heavily regulated by Ofwat so the price difference between suppliers  ...  view the full minutes text for item 710