Purpose

The report seeks approval of
the award of contract for CPAM Framework of Construction
Contractors

Content

RESOLVED
to :
 
1  Approves the award of? the Asset Management
Delivery Professional Consultancy Services Framework Agreement to
support the delivery of the Council’s Asset Management
Delivery Capital programme ?to the following bidders:?-
 
Lot 1 -
Architectural and Engineering Services - Bidders A, B, C, D
 
Lot 2 -
Multidisciplinary Consultants - Bidders M, N, O, P
 
Lot 3 - Building
Consultants - Bidders S, U, M, N
 
Reasons For Decision
 
The Council has a Capital and Revenue
programme of works requiring significant investment to support key
Council priorities across a wide variety of its property assets
which is managed under its various Directorates. The Council needs
to therefore procure various professional Consultants to provide
extensive technical expertise and support in its delivery of the
Capital Programme of works.
 
The professional services required to support
such capital projects include Architecture and Design,
Employer’s Agent, Cost Control, various types of Surveying,
Structural Engineering, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering,
Quantity Surveying, and Party Wall Surveyors. The
multi-disciplinary consultants provide a range of professional and
technical services required by the Council to effectively support
the delivery of its capital programme. These services are not
available in-house presently and have not been historically.
 
The Council therefore proposed to set up an
AMD framework agreement with pre-vetted, high-quality technical
professional consultants offering competitive rates to assist it in
delivering capital projects over the next four years.
 
This report seeks approval for the award of a
contract for professional consultant services to support the
Council’s capital programme. 
 
The aim is to establish a 4 year Consultants
Framework, which will consist of small and medium-sized enterprises
(SME) types of professionals/organisations that can be regularly
used by the AMD department. Although there are many Nationwide
Consultancy Frameworks, they very rarely have small suppliers on
their lists. Officers’ experience in using such frameworks
has shown that larger organisations do not always fit the profile
for services to be carried out quickly.
 
The formation of a professional consultancy
framework offers the Council a rapid, easily accessible, highly
cost effective route to appointing vetted professional service
providers. It will help the Council to achieve better quality of
the service and save money.
 
The spend on consultancy services to assist
the Council in delivering the capital works programme over the next
four years is estimated to be in the region of £10.5m. This
will be mainly for CIPFA condition surveys related to high priority
remedial and compliance related works including standalone
projects.
 
Estimated value - The total value of Works for
Contractors’ Works to support the capital programme projects
over the next 4 years (2025-29) is estimated to be £80m of
which approximately up to £10.5m is estimated to be spent on
Consultants’ fees for professional services to support the
Council’s capital investment programme for the duration of
this strategy. The professional fees are currently based on 13% of
the indicative value of Works value of £80m.
 
The fees for consultant services to support
the delivery of capital projects are funded through the
Council’s approved capital programme budget.
 
Alternative Options
Considered and Rejected
 
Option 1: Insource
all or part of the professional services required
Resources required for specialised  skills and
expertise such as Quantity Surveyors, Cost Control Consultants,
Structural Engineers, Architects, Employers Agents are not
available in-house nor generally employed directly by the Council
as these services are required on an adhoc basis on Capital projects depending on the
nature of the works being carried out. These
expertise are required to compile technical specifications
and support the large programme of Capital works.
The lack of suitably qualified and competent,
in the professional discipline, staff and operational accommodation
associated with insourcing all the professional
consultancies’ activities included in the AMD contracts does
not make this option viable and was therefore rejected.
 
Option 2 –
Utilising existing consultant services frameworks
This is not the preferred route in order to
meet the requirements. AMD Capital projects often require
specialist expertise with very narrow timeframes and therefore
Officers need the consultants whose values and a way of working are
aligned with Council’s. At present this model is not
effectively working to the needs and nature of the works being
delivered.  Currently, too much Officer
time is being spent on seeking quotations from various professional
consultancies. The AMD department, and indeed the Council, would
like to offer more support to small businesses and by procuring
this consultancy framework, Officers can extend the pool of
suppliers by inviting small and medium local companies that are not
on the existing frameworks, to participate.
 
Option 3 - To
procure consultancy services via conventional tender routes
These routes are time consuming and require
more resources from the AMD department. The nature of the
department’s work is often urgent and requires using the most
efficient way to procure services. The use of one off procurement
exercises would lead to a wide variety of consultants making
contract management more complex.  It
would also give rise to a wide variety of prices for similar work,
due to different tendering times.  This
offers poor cost certainty and may cause challenges from
clients.  One-off procurement exercises
will only be used for unusual items and bespoke specialist works
which fall outside of the longer term contractual arrangements.