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 award a contract for fire safety support services 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 award of a new call-off contract for the provision of Fire Safety Consultancy services to the Council, for 4 years from November 2023 to November 2027.

The Cabinet Member outlined that the Council required the support of specialist fire safety services to deliver Fire Safety programmes. These programmes were critical to the safety of residents, supporting Haringey in recovering its compliance position in line with commitments to the Regulator for Social Housing.

It was noted that the Council’s commitment to the Regulator following the Council’s self-referral required a high level of competency and consistency in delivering fire safety risk assessments, surveys and works inspections. Quality was therefore prioritised over lowest price, when evaluating the consultants’ submissions.

The Cabinet Member outlined that the Council could not allow this service to fail due to lack of resources, whether in or outsourced. By ensuring there was a suitable longer-term external supplier in place, the Council would be able to demonstrate commitment to learning from a collaborative approach with the Regulator for Social Housing and, as far as possible, ensure the safety of residents and prevent any further non-compliance.

In addition to supporting the in-house team, the report confirmed the commitment to recruit to the current vacancies so that, as much as possible, this work can be undertaken by directly employed personnel in future.

Following questions from Cllr Connor, the following information was noted:

-      With regards to fire and safety inspection breaches identified by the Housing Regulator, there have been over 1000 assessments completed and the Council was on course to meet the required protection targets by March 2024.

-      The principal decision was to have an in-house team for delivering fire safety compliance. However, given the specialist nature of this role, there would always need to be specialist help enlisted and to further help reduce the number of visits required.

Following consideration of the exempt information at item 24 and agreement of the exempt recommendations,

RESOLVED

1. To note that following the completion of tender evaluations, Contractor A (who is identified in the Exempt part of this report), emerged as the highest-ranking bidder, having achieved the highest combined score for quality and price, and

2. To approve the award of a call-off contract to Contractor A to a maximum value of £4.0m over 4 years.

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 risk assessments, door inspections, project management, surveying, cost management, and quality assurance from ‘Competent Persons’.

The contract is awarded based on a call-off arrangement. This means that only works instructed at any time under the contract will incur costs which will be charged in accordance with the tendered schedule of rates. The rates have been compared to wider market rates to ensure they reflect value for money. We will continue to proactively recruit to our in-house team and deliver as much as possible in-house to reduce the need for reliance on these external consultants and thereby ensure we are able to deliver the programme in budget.

The previous contract for this work was put in place in January 2022 as a direct award under the Southeast Consortium’s Fire Safety Consultancy Framework and has since expired. There is an interim arrangement in place until the end of October, to provide support to the in-house team, until this contract can be awarded.

This contract is to deliver programmes of safety inspections and surveys, critical to the safety of residents, supporting Haringey in recovering its compliance position in line with its commitments to the Regulator for Social Housing. Award of this contract is required whilst we continue to recruit to vacancies within our team of Fire Risk Assessors and Surveyors and undertake further assessment as to what other aspects can be delivered in-house, e.g., fire door inspections on high-rise blocks could be undertaken by our Building Safety Managers following suitable training and certification.

Wherever possible subject to appropriate competencies, we will take on more of this work in house. However, due to the competitive nature of the current market, we currently have two interim surveyors covering 2 permanent posts and two in-house risk assessors out of 4. However, we have recently appointed Building Safety Managers and undertaken a further round of interviews for Risk Assessors and Surveyors and are looking to appoint a third permanent risk assessor to one of the vacant posts.

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 skills and resources. There is also an ever-increasing regulatory framework for fire safety, and we will be delivering a significantly increased fire safety works programme over the next 4 years.

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

The contract represents value for money due to it having been competitively tendered through the Haringey’s London Construction Programme, Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) for Minor Works and has been assessed in comparison, with other housing provider costs. The preferred bidder’s commitments to developing costed Schedules of Works at no additional cost will support the procurement of contractors to carry out remedial works. This ensures sufficient budgets are assigned for fire safety remedial projects, prices received from delivery partners are value for money and allows Haringey to develop future maintenance and repair contracts with associated budgets.

The contract 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 Borough-wide fire safety and fire door replacement Works, 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.

Extend/vary the current contract. This has been varied by 50% once and to do so again would only provide a further short-term solution.