Purpose

Extension of the Council's temporary agency contracts
 

Decision

Cabinet RESOLVED to:

1. Approve exercising the optional one-year extension of the call-off contract with OPUS People Solutions, originally procured via ESPO MSTAR4, for the provision of all children’s and adult services resources for the period between 1 October 2026 and 30 September 2027 for up to a value of £8m for this extension period.
2. Approve exercising the optional one-year extension of call-off contracts originally procured via the ESPO 3S_22 framework to the suppliers listed below for the provision of resources that are non-social care for the period between 1 October 2026 and 30 September 2027 and a value of up to £5m for this extension period:

• Opus People Solutions

• Eden Brown

• Morgan Hunt

• Reed

• Sellick Partnership

• Tile Hill

• Blue Arrow

• Permanent Futures

• Hampton Resourcing

• Penna PLC

• Liquid Personnel

• Hays

• Conexia Ltd

1. Approve, in order to regularise contract spend, additional expenditure in contract years 2 and 3 of the call-off contract with OPUS People Solutions, originally procured via MSTAR4 public framework, for the provision of all Children’s and Adults Services social care temporary resources as follows: a. Contract year 2 (1 October 24 to 30 September 25) additional spend of £2,701,997.46; and b. Contract year 3 (1 October 25 to 30 September 26) additional spend of £1,197,226.23.

Alternative options considered

To not extend the council’s call-off contracts procured via the public frameworks MSTAR4 and ESPO 3S-22 for the period 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2027. This would result in a new procurement being undertaken for the Council’s agency resource, for new arrangements to be in place no later than 1 October 2026:

A procurement via another public framework, however, to procure within such a short timeframe would require a high level of procurement resource and potentially the addition of a specialist category manager and associated additional costs. 

To complete open procedure procurement in accordance with Procurement Act 2023 for a local framework with appropriate lots. This would require a high level of business input to develop the detailed specification and procurement resource to conduct the process within a short timeframe.