Agenda item

The original decision documents.

The decision had been called-in for review by 7 Members of the Council; Councillors Lee Chamberlain (Lead), Adrian Grumi, Paul Pratt, Andrew Thorp, Edward Smith, Peter Fallart, Alessandro Georgiou.

Officers, responding to the reasons for call-in, stated that this was an important decision regarding security and, critically, human health and safety.  There was a significant security requirement for the East Bank due to the criminal activity taking place there.  There were areas which were susceptible to fly tipping, incursions and violent incidents involving people working there, the consultants and security staff.  Measures had been put in place to mitigate and reduce the cost of security in this area and a number of security measures had been put in place to reduce the need for human security guards on site.

Officers stated that they were conscious that the cost of extending the contract was significantly over budget, which was due to inflationary pressures, together with the level of uncertainty regarding Housing Infrastructure Funding (HIF) from the Government.  Officers would have preferred for the Council’s infrastructure partners, who would take over responsibility for the security arrangements, to have been on site months ago.  The original security contract was procured in 2019 with a contract value of £2million and for 3 years with the ability to extend for one.  The proposal sought to extend the contract by a year as outlined in the report by Officers and approved in the original Cabinet report and an additional £800k funding from contingency to cover the rest of this year and the next calendar year. Subject to the programme progressing as planned, it was anticipated that there would be a significant reduction to this among over the course of next year.  The contract would end regardless in November 2023.

The proposal had been through the proper procurement process and complied with all requirements of the Council’s Constitution and Contract Procedure Rules.

The Council had been and continued to be working very closely with the Police to reduce security costs.  Security costs had increased due rise in the cost of living and inflation.  Consideration was being given to the weight attached to pricing and quality.  Whilst the procurement for the contract extension had not been market tested, it had been in 2019 and it was these costs which had been used to provide the figures for the budget extension.  It would not be possible to extend the contract further as a full procurement exercise would be required.

Members requested further, detailed clarification be provided regarding the cost of security based on the current market rates and conditions and details of the contingency planning around procurement.

The Call-In Lead, Councillor Alessandro Georgiou summarised the points made during the discussion.

The Overview and Scrutiny Committee considered the reasons provided for the call-in and responses set out in the Officer’s report.  Having considered the verbal responses and information presented by Officers, the Committee AGREED to refer the matter back to the original decision taker, the Acting Executive Director, Place to consider:

·     Update of the confidential appendix with benchmarking data

·     Provide an explanation on contingency funding.