Content

RESOLVED:
 
To approve the
Contract Variation of £1,459,067.78 which covers work to
replace the failed tile roof, renew the flat felt roofs, and
associated works to adapt any gutters.
 
Reasons For
Decision
 
1. 
During the erection of the scaffold, which was being installed to
undertake the original façade project at the beginning of
the contract on 3rd May 2022, it was evident that an area of roof
had slipped (image above). This area was not visible during the
original scoping survey. A subsequent report was undertaken by the
Council’s (project consultants), which determined that the
majority of the tile roof exhibited nail sickness and that the tile
roof was very close to failing and would need to be fully
replaced.
 
2. 
The original completion of the contract was 29th July 2022. The
proposal is to extend this to May 25.
 
3. 
As part of this contract, the Council appointed a contract
administrator , as part of the team. This role includes the
day-to-day administration of the project, scrutiny of costs
provided by the contractor, all variations submitted for this
project and throughout the entire façades programme up to
director level.  The contract
administrator uses the prices for the works provided in the tender
returns as well as similar projects as a comparison. Once this
review has been done, the contract administrator provides a short
summary advising on value for money.
 
4. 
With regards to the benchmarking value for money; we have a similar
roof replacement on a similar school property, (Millfields primary school), which has been tendered
separately. This was awarded to a different contractor and is being
administered by a different project consultant company and has a
similar tender amount to the variation being sought here and is
comparable.
 
Alternative
Considered and rejected
 
Two options were considered with regards to
this variation, they are;
 
1. 
The do nothing option would be to leave the scaffold around the
whole school indefinitely with the ongoing hire costs being picked
up by the Authority. This would not have removed the risk, merely
reduced it as the façade would have continued to
deteriorate.
 
2. 
The other option would have been to complete the current contract
with the existing contactor and then to go out to tender for the
roof replacement, this option was rejected for several reasons
namely: the time that this process would have taken, leaving the
school surrounded by scaffolding, the duplication of work between
the facade repair project which had some minor roof repair included
as well as the works to replacing rainwater downpipes and gutters
in the existing contract would have to have been redone. It was
evident that this would not have provided value for money and, as
mentioned above, it was felt that the comparison with a similar
project confirmed that this contract variation was competitively
priced.