Agenda and minutes

            At its meeting on 13th March 2006 the Sub-Committee received a report outlining the issues surrounding a number of voluntary sector contracts within Health and Partnerships. The report highlighted a timetable of actions, which included reviewing, monitoring, tendering and re-tendering for these services. This work had now taken place and had produced three clear options details of which were outlined in the report. It was noted that thirteen of the fifteen contracts would now be offering more in the way of service provision and monitoring information for the same level of expenditure. The remaining two projects would require re-tendering.

            It was also reported that work had taken place on improving the monitoring and data collection for a selection of low level services. This had helped to provide detailed information relating to individual services and longer term would help the Council identify the impact, both financially and through service provision of preventative voluntary services.

            RESOLVED: That

(1)             Standing Orders 4.1 and 4.3 be waived and contracts awarded as             listed             in Appendix 1 whose value is less than £50,000 and that             contracts and specifications are improved and linked to a standard             process;

(2)             Standing Orders 3.1 - 3.7 be waived and contracts awarded as listed in             Appendix 2 whose value is in excess of £50,000 but not exceeding             £1,000,000 and that contracts and specifications are improved and      linked to a standard process;

(3)       re-tendering takes place on each of the contracts listed in Appendix 3;             and

(4)       a template Service Specification be developed to encourage             standardisation of information received from organisations.

            The Sub-Committee considered a report which summarised the overall half year spending position against the Council’s Revenue Budget and Capital Programme across all departments up to 30th September 2006.

            In overall terms, revenue expenditure at the half year position was within the budget profile. However, as the profile was only a guide to eventual spending it was important that budget managers continue to closely monitor and control spending to ensure that overall spending remains in line with budget by year end. Within the overall position there were some significant variances and details of these were outlined in the report.

            With regard to capital it was reported that spending represented only 24% of the total programme. Although historically capital expenditure was significantly higher in the second half of the financial year, it was important that project managers kept projects and spending on schedule and in particular to ensure that all external funding was maximised.

            RESOLVED: That the report be noted.

            The Sub-Committee considered a report which reviewed activities and Treasury management for second quarter of 2006/07.

            It was noted that all policy guidelines including the Prudential indicators had been complied with.

            RESOLVED: That the report be noted.

            The Sub-Committee was advised that each year the Council’s requirements for stationery and paper amounted to an estimated £120,000 and £50,000 respectively. The actual take-up depended on a wide spectrum of factors many of which could not be reliably predicted. For these reasons the Council had over the years entered into a framework (or call off) contract with a supplier under which the Council could order a range of supplies at prices fixed throughout the contract. Potentially there could be separate suppliers for paper and for stationery. The contracts had usually been for a period of between one and two years. The contract was not an exclusive agreement so the Council could order elsewhere if it chooses and there was no commitment that the Council would place any minimum order or indeed any order at all under the contract. Suppliers tendering for these contracts every one to two years tendered on the basis of previous years’ volumes of purchases.

            The Sub-Committee noted that tenders had been invited in the normal way for stationery for the period 1st September 2006 to 31st August 2008. As a result 5 tenders had been received and had been appraised against the declared criteria of a blend of price and quality. Office Depot had been identified as the preferred supplier.

            Following the tender process it had become clear that if the Council were to extend the contract to cover a much wider spectrum of stationery items further savings in the sum of £48,000 may be achieved if volumes of purchasing, in particular items and supplies over the next two years reached fixed levels. This had been brought to the Council’s attention through contact with OGC, the Government Purchasing Agency.

            Although the Council had not tested the market for this wider range of items and supplies through a tendering process; it was understood that OGC had carried out price comparisons with two of the Council’s three shortlisted suppliers: Office Depot and Banner. Both provided framework prices to OGC and of the two Office Depot was the most competitive. The third supplier could not be involved in this process as they were not part of the OGC framework.

            The Sub-Committee considered the following three options:

-           accept the Office Depot stationery tender for the range of items for which the market had been tested;

-           discard the tenders received and accept the OGC arrangement subject    to waiver of Standing Orders on the grounds of loss of clear    commercial or financial detriment; and

-           discard the tenders received, go out to tender again on a much wider    basis joining a much wider range of stationery items with all the    Council’s non-schools paper requirements.

            The Sub-Committee was advised that options 1 and 2 both offered similar levels of savings on the basket of 250 items used traditionally to assess tenders of this nature. Option 2, however, offered further potential savings due to its much broader coverage of items. For this reason it was recommended that Option 2 be preferred  ...  view the full minutes text for item 50.

            The Sub-Committee was advised that Officers from WREN had approached the Council in April and invited bids this year in excess of their usual maximum grant of £40,000 per scheme as they did not wish to carry forward a large unallocated surplus of potential funding into the next financial year.

            Six bids were submitted to support and extend existing environmental improvement projects as any grant funding would need to be spent in 2006/2007 financial year. Five were successful, totalling £310,764. In order to access grant for each project an 11% contribution from a third party was required to offset attributable costs for WREN. Local authorities were allowed to provide the third party funding for their own projects. Therefore £34,184.04 of third party funding was required to secure the grant funding. The capital programme currently did not have an allocation for this purpose. It was therefore proposed that the current capital programme be varied for this purpose.

The projects in receipt of grant funding were listed below:

(i)         Climbing boulder at Victoria Park          £20,000;

(ii)    Russell Road kickabout and fencing          £62,500

(iii)   Wigg Island Tower Hide          £80,000

(iv)    Six Acre Lane Playground, Moore          £75,590

(v)         Halebank Recreation Ground

         and Playground          £72,674

RESOLVED: That Council be recommended that the capital programme be varied by the inclusion of an allocation for Third Party Funding – Landfill Tax Credit Funding in the sum of £34,200 for 2006-2007.