Contract for boarding up properties and related services

Report: 10
Date: 13 September 2010
By: Director of Legal Services on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

The Directorate of Legal Services (DLS) has been working to establish under the competitive dialogue procedure, advertised through OJEU, a contract to provide boarding up following forced police entry to premises. This work has been carried out as part of a collaborative arrangement with Thames Valley Police (TVP) and twelve other UK police forces. The procurement process has now reached the stage where TVP, following consultation with the lead forces, has received approval from their authority to award the TVP element of the contract to the successful company with effect from 1 April 2010.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) now seeks to award a contract for boarding up and related services under the framework established with TVP and other UK police forces for three years.

A. Recommendations

That Members

1. approve the award of a contract to the firm identified in the linked exempt report for three years, based upon a three year framework agreement put in place by TVP. The total value for the full three years is estimated to be £5.55m.

B. Supporting information

1. In 2008 TVP commenced a collaborative procurement exercise with other forces relating to boarding up and related services. The MPS through Procurement Services was actively involved in this exercise both in the governance and actual contract wording/tendering meetings hosted by TVP.

2. The contract is for a service to cover the provision of boarding up and related services following instances of police forced entry to premises/property and certain warrant supported or welfare related entries. In cases where the board up is in response to crime related damage the owner/occupier of the property is expected to settle the costs of the service (usually through insurance). In instances where the owner of the premises is present the charges associated with the service are the responsibility of the owner/occupier.

3. The award of this contract under the framework arrangements will replace the current service provided under the Facilities Management Services (FMS) contracts administered by Property Services Department (PSD). The FMS services are provided by Interserve Facilities Management and Balfour Beatty Workplace through two FMS contracts that commenced service on 30th April 2007 for a 7 year period to 29th April 2014 with an option to extend for a further 3 years to 29th April 2017. The total value of the FMS contracts combined over the initial 7 year term is £397m, including variations. This total value includes the current boarding up and related services which were varied into the contract by way of a change control notice in November 2007 to the value of £3.29m per annum pending the introduction of the recommended contract.

4. The proposed contract was advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union by TVP on 10th February 2009, with receipt of tender to be made by 16th March 2009. The notice specified that TVP was contracting on behalf of other contracting authorities (described as “police forces throughout the UK”) in respect of a National Collaborative Contract for the administration of concessions for boarding up/making safe premises. Further, that the supplier would need to be able to run a national call centre for the approved contracts.

5. Of the twelve companies who expressed an interest, requesting a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, five submitted documents seeking consideration and these were subjected to a short listing exercise under the terms of the Competitive Dialogue procedure and to finance checks. This exercise included MPS representation and resulted in three applicants being invited to tender. One of the three applicants subsequently failed to respond but the remaining two companies submitted tenders. The two companies were;

• Architectural Decorators Ltd
• GRG Public Resources Ltd

6. The tenders were assessed under the Competitive Dialogue Procedure to seek a best and final submission and considered on both price (50%) and qualitative measures (50%). The qualitative measure was sub divided into four criteria/categories;

1. Ability to meet specification requirements (20%)
2. Previous experience (10%)
3. Other similar/related contracts (10%)
4. Geographical/Logistical response capability (10%)

7. The tenders were assessed using the above criteria by a cross functional team representing the key stake holders within the forces who had expressed a desire to commit to the contract. The team was identified and agreed by all forces following a meeting on 5 August 2009 and was selected from:

• Thames Valley Police ( Procurement and Finance)
• Hampshire Police (Procurement and Call Management)
• Metropolitan Police ( Procurement and Legal)
• Dorset Police ( Procurement)

8. The time taken to finalise the tendering process arose from complex discussions between the 13 forces as to whether they were in fact interested in joining the framework and as to their individual requirements and how those requirements would be met.

9. In accordance with the process, a last and final submission was requested from the two companies following the despatch of a list of questions to enable the companies to respond to specific queries and to amplify their response. The scores are detailed at Appendix 1 of the exempt information together with the financial implications.

10. Both companies were the subject of site visits by members of the cross functional team to validate the tender responses and to ensure that the companies could deliver the quality and level of service required.

11. There are no anticipated changes to the MPS operational model for the supply of Boarding Up to Operational Officers. Cost and other benefits have been obtained by:

• MPS working collaboratively with TVP by running a competitive procurement process, aggregating English and Welsh Police Force requirements resulting in substantially driving down MPS supplier side costs.
• The price structure now is a single national fixed price with no additional out of hours charges and no public holiday charges.
• We believe this is a sustainable contract as the supplier is undertaking supply work with TVP and are meeting service level requirements. GRG is an international company based in the UK, with revenues of £230m p.a., has 50 FTSE 100 clients and works with 25 UK police forces.

C. Other organisational and community implications

Equality and Diversity Impact

1. A diversity questionnaire was completed by all bidders and no equality or diversity issues were highlighted in relation to the responses.

2. MPS Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate have reviewed the Contract Board Paper and have no observations from a Diversity perspective.

Consideration of MET Forward

1. To achieve value for money by driving down MPS supplier side costs and to secure properties efficiently and effectively so as to ensure public confidence in the MPS.

Financial implications

1. See Appendix 2 (Exempt) for the Financial implications.

Legal implications

1. A competitive process and evaluation was conducted following the publication by TVP on 10 February 2009 of an OJEU Notice. As indicated by para. 4 of Section B of this report the Notice and Framework indicates that the contracting authorities are “police forces throughout the UK”. The forces are readily identifiable and include the MPA. Accordingly, it is considered that the MPA are entitled to use the Framework as a compliant route to market.

2. Alcatel letters were sent to the rival bidders by TVP setting out the award process and the time stipulated in that letter for any legal challenge has expired.

3. The new contract would replace the current reliance upon the FM contract which permits termination by the MPA/MPS “at any time” and “for convenience”.

Environmental implications

1. Where possible, wood used in the boarding up process is sourced from sustainable sources. The wood is not re-used by the supplier as it becomes the property of the building owner.

The table below indicates the expected effect of the recommended option (compared to the ‘do nothing’ option) on:

Risk implications

1. See Legal implications

D. Background papers

• None

E. Contact details

Report authors: Franca Oliffe, Directorate of Legal Services, Mike Birt, Directorate of Legal Services and Bob Markham, Procurement Services, MPS

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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