Agenda item

Report of the Senior Head of Projects, Performance and Technology.

The Committee considered the report of the Senior Head of Projects, Performance and Technology regarding the Council’s revised contract procedure rules (CPRs).

The CPRs formed part of the council’s constitution and determined how officers contracted with external bodies and ensured lawfulness and best practice in terms of the procurement of services, supplies or works.

Changes of substance to the constitution could only be approved by the full Council, following consideration by the Monitoring Officer and, where appropriate, the Audit and Governance Committee.

The council’s CPRs had been revised to reflect the Public Contract Regulations 2015, which came into force this year, to achieve a standard set of CPRs between Eastbourne Borough Council, Lewes District Council and Eastbourne Homes Ltd and enable a modern and responsive approach to procuring works, supplies and services.

The full revised CPRs were appended to the report and key changes were outlined in the report.  The Committee was notified that amendments had been made since the printed copy of the CPRs had been circulated.  At paragraph 15.1 and 16.1, the value of contracts “in excess of” had been changed to £100,000 and paragraph 17.2 had been deleted as this was no longer required.

The Committee discussed the involvement of Councillors during the tender opening procedure.  The revised CPRs changed the way tenders were submitted, now using an e-tendering system to store them electronically. It proposed to remove the requirement for Councillors to attend the tender opening process.  It was clarified that currently a Councillors’ presence at tender openings was to witness and confirm that a set number of tenders had been opened and recorded.  As such, this was a purely administrative process with no analysis of the actual tender bids.  Following subsequent analysis of the tenders, undertaken separately, the appropriate decision making process of awarding the contract could be made.  This could be done through delegated functions by the relevant officer, or in some cases there may be a requirement for there to be a report to Cabinet outlining the analysis of the tenders.

In response to a question from the Committee on internal audit and its involvement with auditing the whole tender process, the Internal Audit Manager confirmed that major contracts were audited as part of the audit plan and this included looking at the whole process.

The Committee queried the reasoning behind the threshold differential between services and supplies contracts and works contracts.  The revised CPRs proposed a requirement that any services and supplies contracts over £100,000 be advertised, compared to over £1 million for works contracts.  It was clarified that the threshold value for European procurement for services and supplies was around £173,000 compared to £4 million for works.  The fees in the revised CPRs reflected this difference.  They were also set to reflect the fact that works contracts generally involve much higher sums, and were designed to be mutually acceptable across the partner organisations that were all being asked to adopt a common set of rules going forward.

In a response to a question from the Committee on the disposal of land, the Lawyer to the Council clarified that currently the Council’s financial procedure roles contained a section on disposal of assets and this had been incorporated into the revised CPRs.  The CPRs were split into two sections, with section one focused on the Council as a purchaser and section two focused on the Council as a seller.  The public procurement rules set out by EU law for awarding contracts does not, however, usually apply when buying or selling land.  For best value and compliance, a section had been added to the CPRs, setting out the main regulatory obligations when disposing of land and other assets and for the Council to demonstrate best value for money in respect of land disposals.

A motion was proposed by Councillor Taylor and seconded by Councillor di Cara to retain Councillors involvement in tender openings and grant them access to the fees of each contract.  This was lost by 3 votes to 2, with one abstention.

(NB: Councillor Holt joined the meeting following the vote on this motion.)

A motion was proposed by Councillor Smart and seconded by Councillor Taylor to reconsider the figure that would require a works contracts to be advertised, which was currently proposed at over £1 million.  This was lost by 4 votes to 2, with one abstention.

RESOLVED: (By 4 votes to 3) That the Committee approve the draft new contract procedure rules in principle and make a recommendation to Full Council for formal adoption into the Council’s Constitution.