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ITEM EX20

EXECUTIVE – 22 JANUARY 2002

PROPERTY CONSULTANCY SERVICES

Report by Director of Environmental Services

 

  1. At their meeting on 11 October 2001 the Operations Sub-Committee received a report titled Property Consultancy Services - Review of WSA's Service 2000/01 and Future Provision of Services (OPS 16). Members of the Executive are recommended to read the full report but a summary follows.

    2. Summary of the Report to Operations Sub-Committee

  2. The Report gave details of the annual review of services provided by WS Atkins (WSA) in 2000/01. There were concerns about some areas of the service but it was acknowledged that WSA had responded well to the very large workload arising from the re-organisation of City schools and overall the service provided was satisfactory.

  3. The current contract with WSA will come to an end in March 2003 although the County Council has the right to extend the contract for a further period. It was recommended that there should be a Best Value Review for Property Services before a new contract for any significant period is let. The review should reassess the services which are likely to be needed in the future, and how they should be packaged and procured. This should include examination of the work done by County Council client staff as well as by the consultants. It would not be possible to undertake a Best Value Review and allow sufficient time for the work which would then be required to arrange for a new contract or contracts to be let by the date at termination of the current contract - 31 March 2003. To allow adequate time it was recommended that the current contract with WSA be extended until the end of March 2005. This would also enable all of the works on the City Schools Reorganisation to be completed before the re-letting and avoid the significant extra workload involved in re-tendering during those works.

  4. Members of the Operations Sub-Committee expressed dissatisfaction with the current level of service and resolved to:

    1. recommend the Executive in consultation with Scrutiny to set up an urgent assessment of the services provided by WSA;

    2. extend the current contract with WSA until 31 March 2004.

    Review of Services

  5. The Annual Review goes into considerable detail in assessing the service using monitoring information. Copies of the detailed reports which made up the review undertaken in 2001 have been placed in the Members' Resouce Centre. My strong advice would be that rather than concentrate on an assessment of the services provided by WSA, a thorough review should be undertaken to re-examine the property consultancy services required by the County Council and how they should be provided. There should be consideration of the client role, the split of functions between Environmental Services and service departments and the services required to be provided externally and how they should be packaged and procured.

  6. It will also be necessary to consider the consultancy services which will be required under the partnering contracts arising from the Government’s "Rethinking Construction" initiative (this will be a recommendation of the Best Value Review for Construction). This goes well beyond assessing the service provided by WSA and, in my view would be most appropriately addressed by a Best Value Review. Almost certainly the review would involve independent expert advice.

    7. Extension of the Current Contract

  7. If a thorough review of the property services required by the County Council is to be undertaken then my advice would be that a period of twelve months should be allowed for the review to be undertaken and for any recommendations and action plan to be agreed with members. The process from that point for entering into new contracts would take eighteen months allowing for a six-month lead-in period for any new contractor following appointment. The earliest that a new contract could commence would therefore be the beginning of July 2004. Extension of the current contract with WSA until March 2004, as agreed by the Operations Sub-Committee, therefore gives a timetable which would be extremely difficult to achieve from the outset and would not allow for any slippage or unforeseen delays.

  8. Extension until March 2005 would allow adequate time with an allowance for any delays in a Best Value Review and in the processes for preparing new contract documentation, consultation, advertising, selection of contractors, completion of legal documentation and lead-in period. My strong advice is to allow adequate time and not to start with what is probably an unachievable timescale for reviewing a service and letting a contract or contracts which will involve very substantial expenditure for the County Council and have a significant impact on all services as well as potentially causing disruption to the City Schools Reorganisation.

    9. Conclusion

  9. I remain of the view therefore that, as recommended to the Operations Committee:

    1. a Best Value Review of Property Consultancy Services should be included in the Best Value Review Programme for 2002/03; and

    (b) the current contract with WSA should be extended until 31 March 2005.

  10. It would however also be appropriate to review the performance monitoring arrangements under the current contract before the contract is re-let.

    11. RECOMMENDATION

  11. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to consider the recommendation of the Operations Sub-Committee having regard to the Director of Environmental Services’ advice set out in the report.

 

DAVID YOUNG
Director of Environmental Services

Background Papers: Nil

Contact Officer: Neil Monaghan, Tel Oxford 815712

January 2002

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