To extend the existing cleaning and construction contracts for a period of five months to provide sufficient time to complete the procurement process.

The existing contracts for cleaning (Interserve) and construction (Integral) be extended for a period of five months to 31 August 2018 at a cost of £0.45m and £1.5m.

1.            Not to extend the contracts, this is not recommended because Herefordshire Council will require some form of building maintenance and cleaning services to continue operating and delivering services from its property portfolio and there is insufficient time to complete a re-procurement before the current contracts end on 31 March 2018.

2.            The option of procuring individual contracts for each element of construction / maintenance work has been considered. Given the volume of small orders, this approach does not comply with the EU rules around aggregation of contracts and in addition would also take considerable additional time and staff resources and therefore this option is not recommended.

3.            The option of bringing the services in house and to TUPE (Transfer of undertakings (Protection of Employment)) in the existing staff has been discounted as this would be a more costly option and would require additional plant, equipment and ICT programs that are not held in the council at present and would need further resources to purchase.

4.            The option of utilising the existing Balfour Beatty Living Places Public Realm contract instead of retendering was also considered, however this has been discounted for the following reasons:

·         Such an approach would not visibly demonstrate that the market has been tested to ensure the services are providing best value on works of this type.

·         This approach could lead to the council being challenged by other providers of these services.

·         A short term move into the BBLP contract was also considered to allow the tendering of the new contract but this could involve double handling from a TUPE point of view when the contract was retendered and this approach does not offer benefits over extending the contract with the existing provider.