Purpose

The Sandwell Youth Buses are a mobile facility for young people providing opportunities to engage in positive activities and a safe space to access information and support. There are high demands on the use of the Youth Buses. They are an effective tool to get young people engaged with youth workers in areas that may not have any youth provision or areas that may be suffering from anti-social behaviour. Youth Workers can then develop programmes and projects with the young people to address their needs / issues.

The new vehicles will be used to visit locations within Sandwell where young people can utilise facilities on board. This ensures every young person has access to high quality youth work and youth provision in their towns and neighbourhoods, providing them with something to do, somewhere to go and someone to talk to, enabling them to thrive and achieve their full potential.

Youth Services currently operate two vehicles:

• YS001 – A 23-year-old DAF double deck bus that has been converted into a mobile youth facility.
• YS002 – A 16-year-old Volvo that has also been converted into a mobile youth project facility.

Due to their age, both vehicles are suffering more frequent and lengthy breakdowns, the downtime of which is impacting the service provided to the young people of Sandwell. New vehicles will incur significantly less downtime from breakdowns, repairs and parts delays.

In accordance with the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules, a full procurement exercise will be undertaken for the conversion of the vehicles into mobile youth provision. The conversions are expected to take in the region of 3 months with an expected cost of £100,000 each. This will also be funded from COMF.

Both vehicles are planned for completion week 15 (w/c 10 April 2023) this is subject to supply chain lead times and may change. Advanced payment will be made on the 27 March 2023 of 50% (£257,995) the reminder will be paid upon delivery through COMF.

The funding will be made available to Youth Services and Fleet Services to complete the purchase of the vehicles through the TPPL framework.

Consultation with Procurement Services has taken place who are satisfied that the route to market complies with Public Contract Regulation and the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules.

Decision

That approval be given to replace two diesel double deck buses using Contain (COVID) Outbreak Management Fund (COMF) funding to the total value of £515,990 plus VAT (£619,188).

That the Director of Children and Education be authorised, in accordance with the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules, to direct award to Alexander Dennis via the TPPL (The Procurement Partnership Limited) framework for the supply and delivery of two diesel double deck buses for Youth Services and to make the necessary arrangements to convert them into youth buses through Fleet Services.

Reasons for the decision

COMF funding will allow for the purchase of the two new vehicles.

Utilising the TPPL (The Procurement Partnership Limited) framework for direct award to Alexander Dennis will enable a compliant route to market in the small timeframe required.

Alternative options considered

Alternative options for an Electric Bus have been considered but disregarded due to greater cost and lead in time which would have meant that the funding could not have been spent within the required timescale.


Carry out full procurement exercise for the purchase of replacement vehicles using COMF. The available vehicles are stock orders that are already in production and may be purchased by other parties prior to the completion of a full procurement exercise. The current lead time for non- stock orders is 9 months. A direct award is permitted under the TPPL framework agreement and offers the council a compliant way to procure quickly and achieve best value.

Carry out full procurement exercise for the purchase of replacement vehicles using the current fleet replacement model – Fleet Services currently outright purchase all assets (vehicles, equipment and plant) This option would be unable to make use of current COMF funding and instead utilise the current fleet replacement model financed by capital borrowing. The current transport budget for Youth Services would not allow for the purchase of new double deck buses.

Do not replace the current vehicles – These vehicles do not currently provide a consistent service to the young people of Sandwell due to their age and increasing reliability issues. As both vehicles are in excess of 16 years old their reliability issues are only going to increase.