Purpose

Under the Environmental Protection Act, the
provision of a clinical waste collection service is a statutory
requirement of the Council as the Waste Collection Authority.
As part of the Council’s Waste and Recycling service there
are currently approximately 3500 clinical waste customers who
utilise the service per annum. The service is provided at no cost
to the households and customer support is managed by the
contractor
The current contract for the collection and disposal of household
clinical waste is for a total of three years duration and is set to
expire on the 31st December 2025 with the incumbent contractor
being General Business Holdings (GBH) who are a SME based in
Witham, Essex. Current annual contract costs are approximately
£40,000 of which Essex County Council contribute towards 30%
of these costs to reflect the disposal costs for which as the Waste
Disposal Authority they are responsible for.
The procurement process to find a contract from January 2026
onwards was initially commenced in May 2025 supported by the Essex
Procurement Partnership and was undertaken in accordance with the
Procurement Act 2023.
The contract opportunity was published on Contracts Finder in
September 2025 for the provision of a contractor to provide a
clinical waste service to commence on 1st January 2026 for a fixed
duration of 3 years with no option to extend and therefore would
end on 1st January 2029.
The contract term was chosen to align with Local Government
Reorganisation (LGR) so that the new Unitary Authority has the
timely ability to procure a new contract as part of the larger
organisation.
Three bids were received for evaluation, two of which were deemed
non-compliant at the ITT stage and the remaining bid, following
evaluation, was also deemed non-compliant.
With no compliant bids received, the current contracted service
provision is set to expire on 31st January 2025. The timeline
required to initiate a new procurement process does not align with
the current contract expiry date and will result in the Council not
having a service provider in place and will be unable to deliver
this statutory service.
The direct award of a six-month contract to the incumbent
contractor, on the same terms as existing, will allow for the
market and the Authority to refresh for the next round of bids,
combined with the Essex Procurement Partnership providing training
sessions to bidders on how to comply with the Procurement Act 2023
procedures and requirements.
The incumbent contractor is prepared to enter into a six month
contract extension with the Authority at current service costs.
This will equate to £24,000, 30% of which will be recouped
from Essex County Council.
A decision is required in respect of the decision to exempt this
procurement from the requirements in the Procurement Procedure
Rules in the Council’s constitution.
The decision is exempted from the Procurement Procedure Rules based
on urgency as there is no insufficient time to run the procurement
process again before the expiry of the current contract at the end
of December 2025.

Content

To agree an exemption from the Council’s
Procurement Procedure Rules (on the basis of urgency) and to
appoint General Business Holdings to provide clinical waste
collection services on a six-month contract running from 1st
January 2026 to 30th June 2026

Alternative options considered

There are no issues related to LGR or
devolution associated with this decision. These will be covered as
part of the main procurement exercise.