Agenda item

1.            Ms Harrington and Mr Sanderson introduced the report and responded to comments and questions from the committee, including the following:-

a)    a view was expressed that the County Council needed good quality consultants that it could call on for specialist projects, however, if they were to be used regularly, a balance would need to be struck between engaging externally, as and when required, and recruiting consultants to work in-house, and the comparative costs of these two options. The Council would need to have the technical expertise to be able to judge the quality of the consultants engaged on the framework. Mr Sanderson advised that the main area for which consultants were required was multi-discipline building surveying services to support the minor works programme. The design for major projects would be in the domain of the contractor, under Design and Build Contracts, through the Construction Partnership Framework being established.  Mr Sanderson noted that, within the capital function, the Council was looking to establish two technical advisor roles, which would give technical expertise, working alongside its professional and contractor suppliers. The aim was to work with a selected smaller group of key partners, in the same way as for the Construction Partnership Framework. Regarding comparative costs of in-house and external commission, assuming a £100m capital programme, and using a Quantity Surveyor as the example, the Council would need a team of 6 in-house quantity surveyors of various levels of experience, with salaries ranging between £30 and £80k.  Commissioning externally across the same £100m capital programme, based on typical fees, this would equate to approx. £500k, approximately £70k more than the in-house option, however this does not take account of new administration and IT support systems. Mr Sanderson also raised some concern around general recruitment appetite for the in-house posts, which were thought to be less attractive to good candidates, compared to private consultancy practices; and

b)    asked for reassurance about liability when contracting, and if the Council had always had its costs covered when it had passed liability for design on to a contractor, Ms Harrington advised that the Council would indeed seek to recover its costs in such circumstances. Mr Watts added that the Council had indeed brought litigation against third parties where project design had proved to be flawed, and the committee had recently considered an example of such a case. However, such litigation was very expensive to pursue and would need to be very carefully weighed against the potential gains, particularly in the case of lower-costs schemes.  It was vital to make a carefully considered decision at the outset and avoid such situations arising;

c)    concern was expressed that full details of procurement costs were not included in the report but would be needed for Members to take an informed view;

d)    asked if the Council would pay a retainer fee for consultants, for how long a period they would be retained at a time and how the rotation would work, Ms Harrington advised that the consultants would not be on a retainer as the framework would not have any guaranteed workload. This was not unusual in the industry. Successful consultants would all be used for the duration of the framework and the rotational basis would typically be on a project-by-project basis, subject to satisfactory performance, ensuring suppliers had broadly the same amount of work per discipline. Ms Harrington explained that there could be a maximum of 21 consultants across all the disciplines but thought it more likely to be around 15 – 20 if they bid for more than one lot; and

e)    asked if smaller local companies, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) would be able to bid for work, Ms Harrington confirmed that the lotting strategy proposed looked to support SMEs being able to bid, should they wish, and the programme needed to allow plenty of time for SMEs to put forward their best bid proposal.   In addition to this, questions such as “social value” needed to be written so as not to disadvantage SMEs.

2.            It was RESOLVED that the proposal, the preferred option (option 3) and the procurement programme be noted.

Mr A Brady and Dr L Sullivan asked that their abstentions from this resolution be recorded in the minutes.