Agenda item

Report of the Director of Placemaking and Housing. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Housing Services, Private Renters, and Planning.

To extend the value service of the current fire safety consultancy service by external consultants which includes support in key fire safety programmes and undertaking fire risk assessments.

The Cabinet Member for Housing Services, Private Renters and Planning introduced the report which sought approval for the variation of the existing contract value for the current provision of Fire Safety Consultancy Services to the Council, for the remaining contract term, to January 2025. This contract was needed until an in-house team was established.

In response to questions from Councillor Cawley – Harrison the following was noted:

-       Clearly there would be an increase in the number of fire safety inspections of Council homes and the Council were working to increase the number of trained Council staff able to carry out these assessments.

-       The Director for Placemaking and Housing outlined, as advised in previous Cabinet reports and to the Housing Improvement Board, that the Council had commissioned an independent review of the landlord function, following the insourcing of Homes for Haringey which included verifying data concerning fire risk assessments. This had identified a number of issues with the data compilation and the Council had put in place a number of actions to address this issue.

-       The data issues were not related to the performance of the contractor and extension of the contract was an expedient way to ensure the fire safety services continued efficiently.

RESOLVED to

1.            Approve a variation of the existing contract with Faithorn Farrell & Timms LLP for the provision of Fire Safety Consultancy Services to the Council by increasing the maximum contract value by an additional £247,500 taking the maximum contract value to £742,500 over the maximum contract period of 5 years (of which 3 years and 7 months currently remain) including the optional extension period of up to 2 further years beyond the initial 3-year contract period.

Reasons for decision

            In order to deliver the Fire Safety programmes, which includes Fire Risk Assessments, Surveys, Specifications and Schedules of Works, Reports and Quality Assurance, Haringey Council requires the support of specialist fire safety services (including Project Management; Surveying; Cost Consultancy; and Quality Management & Assurance from Competent Persons).

            The existing arrangements for this work have been in place since January 2022 and were procured as a direct award under the South East Consortium’s Fire Safety Consultancy Framework. After initially approaching the top ranked consultancy, we approached the second placed consultancy, Faithorn Farrell & Timms LLP (FFT), who were able to take on and support our service requirements.

            The consultants are and have since been successfully delivering programmes of safety inspections and surveys, critical to the safety of residents. This support is currently relied upon whilst we continue to try to recruit to existing vacancies within our team of Fire Risk Assessors and Surveyors, who would normally deliver the core elements of this work. However, due to market pressures and a shortage of suitably competent persons this is taking longer than originally anticipated.

            Even when the team is fully resourced, there will always be a need to rely upon additional consultancy services to support the in-house team through peaks in workload and gaps in resources. The procurement of a longer-term support arrangement is the subject of a separate and new procurement project currently being progressed, to take over this provision once this extension is exhausted.

            As we continue delivering fire safety programmes, the variation of this contract offers continuity and the necessary resource availability to support the in-house team in the delivery of the essential life-safety programmes.

            The variation supports the ongoing delivery of major fire safety inspection and delivery programmes to comply with the Fire Safety Act, the Building Safety Act and subsequent secondary legislation being introduced in the form of Regulations. Such projects include Broadwater Farm Fire Safety Works, Type 3 Fire Risk Assessments, Bin-chute upgrades, Loft compartmentation and Fire Door inspections.

Alternative options considered.

Do nothing. This would leave the residents subject to living in buildings where there could be fire safety issues that go unrecorded and unremedied if we do not undertake Fire Risk Assessments and improvement works. In addition, the Council would not be compliant with both the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety Order) 2005 and the Fire Safety Act 2021 and its subsequent secondary regulations.

Undertake all the work in-house. This option is not viable due to the current lack of specialist skills available in the market for Haringey to recruit.

Procure a new contract. This is in progress but will not be in place in time to deliver the current requirements.