Agenda item

The Council, as a public body when undertaking procurement exercises and awarding contracts, had to comply with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.  The Regulations placed a great deal of restrictions on the Council in how it was permitted to run procurement exercises and in some cases the Council could be sued by bidders for not following these Regulations.  It was the relevant service area / directorate that was responsible for undertaking procurement exercises and the management of contracts, not the procurement team.  The procurement team developed the corporate policy, supported high risk/value procurement exercises and provided training on procurement and contract management.

The Committee received a report summarising compliance with the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules (CPR’s) and compliance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 during the reporting period from April to 30 September 2021, i.e. the first 6 months of financial year 2021/22.  The report explained the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules and different financial limits relating to contracts, waivers and breaches.  Rule 6.18 allowed a Waiver to the requirement for competition and for a contract to be placed by direct negotiation with one supplier. This needed to be agreed and documented in advance.  However, waivers under this rule could not be granted if over the relevant Procurement Thresholds.  The various thresholds were £189,330 for goods and services, £663,540 for Light Touch Regime and £4,733,252 for works.

If a direct award was made that was above this threshold (if a legal alternative such as a Framework was not used) a breach had occurred, and officers were obliged to report this to the S151 Officer and Monitoring Officer (statutory officers).  In some instances, there may be legal permitted changes within the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.

The process for Service areas to complete waiver forms to waive internal rules was explained.  There had been a total of 32 waivers registered in the first 6 months of the financial year 2021/22, 19 in the first quarter and 13 in the second quarter.  There had also been one breach reported to the Statutory Officers in the period.  Information on this was included in the confidential appendix on the agenda.

Members were informed that one of the issues of bringing together five Councils was the procurement and contract management culture of relevant services areas/directorates.  To assist in developing a new positive culture and to ensure a high level of assurance the Procurement team provided training on several areas.  Details of procurement and contract management training undertaken during April-September 2021 was at Section 6 of the report.

The Committee report also included information:

-          On a recent Green Paper released by central Government on the future transformation of public sector procurement, although any changes would not happen before 2023.

-          On new public sector procurement thresholds that had come into force from 1 January 2022 and would apply to all public procurement under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015) and the Concession Contract Regulations 2016 (CCR 2016).

-          On a summary of all waivers registered during Q1 and Q2 2021/22, by value, by risk category (low/medium/high) and by Service Area.

Members sought additional information and were informed:

-          Whilst 38 waivers had been registered some of these would have been removed where the waiver was no longer needed. This was the reason for the respective quarter 1 and quarter 2 figures of 19 and 13.

-          The procurement thresholds noted in the report were set by central Government, however there had been some pushback from local authorities due to a lack of clarity on the need to include VAT within contract values. This was said to be a difficult task and officers were being asked to assess contracts for whether VAT needed to be applied.

-          To provide context to the number of waivers, the Committee was advised that there were circa 2500 contracts of a range of values within the contract database and the team were supporting 32 to 35 high value, high risk procurement activities.

-          The waiver for the CAMHS contract was made to allow closer aligning with wider CCG contracts. A legal assessment and value for money assessment would have been completed prior to the waiver being approved.

The Committee congratulated the team on their nominations for the Public Procurement Team of the year and Best Supplier Relationship Management awards.

RESOLVED –

That the report, and the work of the Strategic Procurement team, be noted.