Agenda item

(Report of the Director of Place and Sustainability). The report seeks approval to changes in contractual arrangements for the purposes of designing and delivering the engineering phase of the development.

The Leader of the Council considered a report that sought approval to changes in contractual arrangements for the purposes of designing and delivering the engineering phase of the development. The report also sought approval to establish a capital budget of £1m for the delivery of the Reuse and Recycling Centre.

RESOLVED:

      i.        That the use of the Council’s existing LoHAC contract, for the purposes of delivering the engineering and design construction works required for the replacement Reuse and Recycling Centre at Western Road Depot, be approved, and that the call-off contract be awarded to Ringway Jacobs.

    ii.        That it be agreed that authority be delegated to the Director of Place and Sustainability to finalise the contract for these works, in a sum not exceeding £675k, after consultation with the Cabinet Member for Environment.

   iii.        That the establishment of a capital budget of £1m for the initial delivery of the Reuse and Recycling Centre be approved, with all costs properly accounted to this project subsequently to be effectively recovered from the North London Waste Authority on the purchase of the site by them.

   iv.        That it be approved that any necessary subsequent revision to the capital budget be delegated to the Director of Place and Sustainability, in association with the Chief Financial Officer, and reported to Cabinet via budget monitoring.

Alternative options considered

The Council could undertake a new procurement for the delivery of the required works.  A new procurement would add a period of around two months to the timetable. This option therefore carries a very significant risk of extending timescales beyond the target completion date (end-March 2014) and therefore would prejudice the Council’s disposal of the Hornsey Depot site. 

In contrast the recently awarded LoHAC contract allows call-offs to be made for engineering design and construction works for all Council services, without the need to tender.  Given the very significant timescale pressures for delivery of Western Road Depot and the availability of appropriately procured contract arrangements for the type of works in question, new procurement has not been considered further. 

The Cabinet report, which considered the procurement process for the LoHAC contract (18 June 2013 Cabinet, as detailed in Section 5 of the report) has demonstrated the contract is capable of delivering competitive pricing for a wide range of engineering works.  As such, it can be assumed that call-off from the LoHAC contract schedule of rates, with the flexibility to negotiate additional discounts for fixed price work, will deliver competitive pricing.  There would in addition be a saving from not having to run a fresh procurement. 

As noted in paragraph 1.4 of the report, the price is subject to the completion of the final design. Due to the timescale pressure, the report recommends authority is delegated to the Director of Place and Sustainability to finalise the contract in a sum not exceeding £675k after consultation with the Cabinet Member for the Environment.  In preparation for this stage, a due process will have been followed involving verification of the costing by the appointed Quantity Surveyor. 

The use of the LoHAC contract has been agreed with NLWA officers who will ultimately be meeting the design and construction costs as part of their purchase of this site.

Reasons for decision

As set out in the report call-off under the LoHAC contract framework to deliver the required engineering works will provide competitive pricing by virtue of the procurement that was undertaken by TfL to appoint Ringway Jacobs, and will provide for the necessary speed and quality of delivery.