Agenda item

[Report of the Director for Environment and Neighbourhoods. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods.]

To consider procurement outcomes for Nuisance Vehicles in Haringey.

The Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods introduced this report which sought approval, pursuant to Contract Standing Order (CSO) 9.07.1(d), for the award to Supplier A of a nuisance vehicle contract for a period of four years with optional extensions for a total contract value of £8.73m over a maximum contract term of 8 years including all extensions. 

The Cabinet Member highlighted that Local Authorities had a statutory duty to remove Abandoned Vehicles from the public highway and any other land in the open air, such as car parks. To do this the Council needed to have a mechanism of removing vehicles and have a place to hold those vehicles to be claimed by their owners.

The Cabinet Member noted that in September 2015, Cabinet approved a 3-year contract with a 2-year extension to NSL. That contract would draw to an end in November 2019. The Council had explored if it could provide this service differently. However, the Council’s assessment concluded that it was not financially viable for it to have a different delivery model, either in house or as a hybrid model with a contractor.

Whilst there was a desire to deliver services in-house, the Cabinet Member emphasised that the cost to do so for this particular product was not financially viable and therefore it was necessary to outsource this contract.

In response to questions from Councillor Rice, the following information was provided:

·         The Cabinet Member would raise with IT that the Haringey App used to report dumped items did not have the option to report dumped vehicles and seek to rectify this.

RESOLVED

To approve, pursuant to CSO 9.07.1(d) the award to Supplier A of a nuisance vehicle contract for four (4) years with options to extend for an additional period of two (2) years plus two further periods of one (1) year, exercisable at the sole discretion of the Council, at a cost of £1.1m per annum or a total cost of £8.73m if all extension options are taken up. Details of Supplier A is outlined in Part B (exempt information) of the report.

Reasons for decision

The existing nuisance vehicle contract was awarded by Cabinet to NSL on 25th September 2014 for an initial period of three years with an option to extend for a further two years.

The existing contract was extended in November 2017 and will expire at the end of November 2019.

A new contract is required in order to support the wider transformation of the Parking service, which includes the roll out of further Controlled Parking Zones. The proposed contract includes a re-written specification and a requirement for the successful provider to deploy more removal vehicles and operate the vehicle pound for longer hours. The significant changes to the specification can be summarised as follows:

-      An extra removal truck deployed throughout the day.

-      Longer opening hours at the pound: 7am to 10pm Mon-Sat (but to midnight including on Sundays for event day operations) and Sundays 8am to 8pm.

-      Additional vehicle storage capacity at the pound (150 vehicles) to cater for the increased expected volumes of removals.

-      Quicker response times achieved through the new parking IT system.

-      Provision for a 4^th truck to be dedicated to events taking place at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Alternative options considered

Stop the Nuisance Vehicle Removal Service altogether

If the Council does not have a nuisance vehicle service in place upon expiry of the existing contract, the Council:

1. Could not meet its statutory duties in relation to abandoned vehicles and to keep traffic moving safely.
2. Could not remove the very high number of unregistered vehicles that are identified as part of its normal on-street parking enforcement. These vehicles often have high numbers of outstanding PCNs attributable to them.
3. Could not effectively deal with persistent evader vehicles and would lose the opportunity to recover the associated outstanding debt (more information is provided in section 6 of this report).

4.            Could not meet its commitments under the Local Area Management Plan (LAMP), to provide a removals service on Tottenham Hotspur event days.

This was not deemed an acceptable option.

Operate an in-house removals service

This option was and will always be entirely contingent on the Council finding a suitable pound site. After an extensive search and with the co-operation of other services e.g. Homes for Haringey it was not possible to find a suitable site either in the borough or close to the borough boundary with Enfield. The only suitable site is already being used by the Council’s incumbent provider NSL, as a shared pound with Islington and Waltham Forest.

Without a pound site, this was not deemed a realistic or feasible option.

Hybrid model

Under this option, which is an alternative to a fully outsourced service model, the contractor provides the pound, frontline staff and equipment. The Council provides supervisory staff to control and to run the operation. As part of the tender for this contract, the Council received one bid which included pricing for the hybrid option. Whilst the supplier’s costs would remain the same overall under both models, under the hybrid model the Council would have to provide sufficient supervisory and management resources to run the operation. It would not be possible to generate additional revenue to cover the additional costs associated with the hybrid model (the Council cannot set targets or incentivise a supplier to carry out more removals in order to generate revenue). Whilst the Council’s invitation to tender documents contained indicative numbers, these cannot be guaranteed and the actual number of removals will always remain variable from day to day.

This was not deemed a feasible option on grounds of cost.