Decision

The Director of
Finance has decided to approve the direct award of a contract for
strategic transport support services to Mott MacDonald Limited
pursuant to Lot 7 of the Multi-Disciplinary NHS Shared Business
Services Healthcare Planning Construction Consultancy and Ancillary
Services Framework, to run for a period of 24 months from 8 July
2024. 
 

Reasons for the decision

To provide consistency
of high quality consultant support across key projects in line with
the timescales required for the deadline of March 2026 as set by
the Simplification Pilot and to ensure that the Council has the
required flexibility to secure specialist consultant support, where
increased capacity or specialist technical skills including
transport modelling are required, in order to achieve the
development and delivery of regeneration and transport projects
within the Borough. It is considered the bringing a new contractor
into support the service at this time could add risk to the
regeneration programme.
 
To ensure that the
Council develops and delivers schemes which will deliver increased
levels of sustainable and active travel as set out in the emerging
Local Plan, Birkenhead 2040 and to support actions required to
address the Environment and Climate Emergency and the target in the
Cool2 Strategy to ‘a complete transition to fossil fuel free
local travel by around 2030’.
 
The contract does not
provide the supplier with any guaranteed level of work and
alternative procurement exercises can still be undertaken for
projects if considered appropriate.  The
contract enables the Council to secure services where required to
respond at pace or where internal capacity or specialist skills are
required to support project delivery. Given the scale of the
transport and regeneration programme and the required pace of
delivery an option to secure additional capacity and technical
support in this manner is essential. The Council has previous
experience of support from Mott MacDonald Limited and have been
satisfied with the quality and pace of support provided and notably
Mott MacDonald Limited has supported the Council to secure
significant funding for a number of key regeneration
projects. 
 

Alternative options considered

Do not
award the contract and undertake separate procurement exercises for
individual tasks –given the regeneration focus needs to
prioritise the Simplification Pilot deadline of March 2026 this
would lead to delays in delivery whilst procurement exercises were
completed and increase demands placed on regeneration, procurement
and legal colleagues.  The use of
different organisations for different pieces of work may also lead
to inconsistencies of approach.
 
Do not
award the contract and undertake a competitive procurement exercise
– awarding the contract via a framework is a compliant
procurement process which is considered the most appropriate route
to follow given the current deadline of the Simplification Pilot
and the assessment of the risk of bringing in a new consultant to
support projects.
 
Undertake the work in house – the work would require
significant resources and for some areas of the project specialist
transport skills such as traffic modelling will be
required.  There are only 2 full time
Officers in the strategic transport team therefore there is not the
capacity to undertake all the required work in house.  If the work is not undertaken it will impact the
Council’s ability to provide the required information bring
in external funding and deliver the necessary transport schemes to
support the growth ambitions.
 
Seek
support from a different consultancy – depending on the scale
and timescales of projects separate tender exercises could be
undertaken.  This contract has an annual
headroom, so work is managed and allocated in line with
that.  During the 24 month
contract a procurement exercise will commence to seek a provider
for a new Strategic Transport Contract so other providers will also
be able to respond to that opportunity.