Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for   Health, Social Care and Wellbeing  considered the report which sought  agreement to vary an award of contract to Legrand Electric Ltd as allowed under contract standing order CSO 10.02.1.b), which permitted authorisation by the Cabinet or Cabinet Member of an extension or variation to a contract where the value is £500,000 or more.

In response to questions, the Cabinet Member noted that :

-      The contract extension was within the limits of the  parameters of the contract spend in this area.

-      The extension facilitated the  wider look at the  supporting independence in the home with electronic means which  would be in May 2025.

-      The  capacity for provision of the alarms was good and  able to  manage additional lines being added.

-      The service had already completed the change from analogue to digital provision and this transition would allow future infrastructure needs  for the community alarm system to be met with potential updates to the system to allow better independent living support.

-      There were 3400 alarms issued with 1400  for residents living in their own homes or within sheltered accommodation.

-      The social care team were working with the operational housing team on  consideration of the infrastructure upgrade to allow, in future,  more intelligent  devices to be used in the home to support  independent living. This could be  help with  medication reminders and a GPS tracker for residents with relatives concerned about their safety.

-      To enable close family  to support elderly  people living independently at home, agreed that it would be important to provide a visual on the council website of  a home and the digital provisions available to support independent living. This would help close family  have better oversight and management of  their relatives care and ultimately  help the elderly residents be able to stay at home.

The Cabinet Member for  Health, Social Care and Wellbeing,

RESOLVED

1.    To approve the retrospective implementation of Contract Standing Order 10.02.1 (b) and authorise the variation and extension of contract for the provision of Assistive Technology – IT Platform to Legrand Electric Ltd to retrospectively vary the total permitted length of the contract from 4 years to 6 years and retrospectively approve the extension for a period of 1 year from 11^th May 2024 with the decision to take the option to extend for a further 1 year until 10^th May 2026 to be made as a separate decision.

2.    To note that the value of the contract over the 1 + 1 year extension does not exceed £244,322 and the total contract value over the life of the contract will not exceed £732,996.

3.    To approve the delegation of authority to the Director of Adults Social Services to approve the option to extend the contract for up to a further 12 months.

Reasons for decision

In March 2020, the Director of Adults and Health approved the decision to award the contract for a new call monitoring platform to Legrand Electric Limited for a period of three years, with an option to extend for a further year.

The Answerlink platform provided by the provider is meeting all the requirements of the technical specification and the contract. A variation was required to be made early into the contract in regard to Disaster recovery when a 3rd Party provider gave notice however Legrand provided an alternate solution at no additional cost to us that met operational requirements. The contract on an operational basis is managed by the Service Manager and wider contract oversight sits at Head of Service level.

Due to a delay in decision-making regarding the future provision of this service, the full duration of the contract inadvertently expired in April 2024 without an alternative solution in place.  Pending the decision of the future of the service appropriate procurement will be undertaken.

The provider has continued to deliver this critical service at risk and will continue to do so until another arrangement is in place.

The original contract value was £488,664. The total value over the life of the contract, including this extension, will not exceed £732,996, which is 50% more than the original contract value, as allowed under the terms of the contract. This extension is necessary to allow time for a thorough options appraisal and ensure the continued provision of the service.

Alternative options considered

Do-nothing: The cost to the service would be expensive as there will be ongoing additional fees for maintaining a service without a contract in place.  This would also mean that future invoices received for work already carried out would not be able to be paid, leading to financial and operational complications.

Insourcing: the Council does not currently have the technical infrastructure to deliver the services in-house, making insourcing an unfeasible option at this time.

Open Market Tender: A formal tender process including contract mobilisation is expected to take up to 18 months and therefore there is insufficient time to do this, necessitating the extension of the existing contract.