Issue - meetings

The Leader noted the timeline and circumstances for the decision being sought which was  as follows:

-      That in October 2022, the Head of Legal and Governance approved the award of contracts to four law firms for them to advise and act for the Council in relation to Housing Disrepair cases. In the event, as one law firm did not respond, contracts were awarded to three law firms, Ashfords LLP, Birketts LLP and TLT LLP. The value of each contract was capped at £124,999.00 (inclusive of disbursements).

-      On 14^th July 2023, owing to the volume of work outsourced and expected to be outsourced, approval was given for the abovementioned contracts to the three law firms to be varied to increase the contract value by £375,000 to a total value of £499,999 (inclusive of disbursements) for each firm.

-      Claims had continued to increase and there is a need to increase the contract values again so that the firms continue to carry out the work and so that the Council is able to pay the fees of the firms for the next year.

-      In September 2023, Cabinet approved the “2023/24 Finance Update Quarter 1 (Period 3) Report” and noted that “net Housing Revenue Account (HRA) forecast is £4.279m lower than the budgeted surplus” (c.f. Recommendation 3.3). In summary, the reasons for the variance were explained in Appendix 2 to the Report as follows - “The Housing Revenue Account at period 3 – Q1 2023/24 reports a forecast adverse variance of £4.279m. The forecast year-end HRA surplus is £3.959m compared to the HRA budgeted surplus of £8.238m. The Q1 full year forecast variance is mainly driven by a high disrepair/compensation cost which are now forecast to be £4.7m representing a variance of £3.6m against the budgeted sum.” This adjustment in the HRA budget was needed to enable the Council to pay the costs associated with Disrepair cases (including the work carried out by Council’s appointed law firms, compensation and the costs of the tenant’s/ lessee’s solicitors). It was also anticipated that there might be sufficient headroom to enable Legal Services to recruit additional staff as set out in paragraphs 4.2, 5.7 and 5.10 to 5.14 of this report. The budget available in 2023/24 for carrying out legal disrepair casework (whether through inhouse or external lawyers) is £2,301,138.

Further to considering the exempt information, the Leader of the Council,

RESOLVED

1.    To approve (in accordance with CSO 10.02.1(b)), the variation or variations of the contracts awarded to Ashfords LLP, Birketts LLP and TLT LLP in October 2022, so as to increase the value of each contract to a sum which cumulatively does not exceed a total of £2.3m for all three firms;

2.    To delegate to the Head of Legal and Governance the decision on how much to award to each firm, in compliance with paragraph 2(a) above;

3.    To note that monies not allocated to the three firms through the variation(s) of the respective contracts,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15