Agenda item

RESOLVED: That Cabinet approved the recommendation to award the contract to Cherwell District Council for a period of three years with a possible two-year extension.

REASONS RESOLVED:

·         The waste and cleansing service must continue without disruption to households and businesses, and the Council had a responsibility to ensure the vehicles were safe to drive and operate.

·         The recommended course of action would identify the most cost effective and reliable solution.

·         To accord with the statutory duty to collect waste and keep the streets clean.

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS:

The Assistant Director for, Highways and Waste and the Waste and Cleansing Manager had identified three options for future provision of the service:

1.    Undertake a procurement exercise using the YPO Framework Agreement 921 for an outsourced service for maintenance.

2.    Enter into a new Service Level Agreement with Cherwell District Council under revised and improved terms to the previous arrangement.

3.    Operate a hybrid arrangement with part of the service done in-house and part outsourced.

·         The advantages and disadvantages of the three options had been analysed and are listed in Appendix A.

·         Each option has been explored to assess the overall cost, certainty of cost and flexibility of service to determine which solution to choose.

·         The options had been assessed using the same criteria to ensure a fair comparison and due diligence checks had been carried out as part of this.

·         Cherwell District Council had submitted a bid for the service based on an estimate of £305,000 for the first year. This is an estimate of the likely costs for parts and labour based on the age and type of the fleet. Although there would be some risk with a contract priced in this way it is believed that this would be the most cost-effective option and there was an existing working relationship from when the service was under shared management. Entering a contract with another local authority, rather than a commercial supplier, was preferred and the contract would be based on partnership principles of providing a good public service. Costs for subsequent years would rise by CPI (the CPI rate in September (of the preceding contract year) would be applicable on 01 April of the subsequent year, with the first increase on 1 April 2023). It should be noted that the fleet has increased by one extra HGV food waste vehicle in the last year so the additional cost to the revenue budget was expected.

·         The YPO framework exercise was undertaken and one bid was received from a list of six preapproved bidders. This bid, although satisfactory, was shown to be significantly more expensive than the approved budget and was therefore not recommended for approval (the detail of the price proposal is commercially sensitive and therefore not included in this report).

·         The hybrid arrangement was assessed which would involve part of the work being done in-house by directly employed mechanic staff and part outsourced, where work cannot be completed at the depot due to specialist equipment or facilities being needed. The main advantage of this option would be lower labour costs per hour and more control over parts costs. However, this option was ruled out, mainly because of the operational risks with managing the two members of staff that would likely be needed and sickness/annual leave. It would also mean that the Council would have to bring in a system to manage the spare parts needed to maintain the vehicles, a software system to manage the maintenance schedule and find external workshop facilities for any work that cannot be undertaken at the depot.

·         The option of including the waste vehicles within the West Northants fleet management arrangements was also considered at the start of this process. However, this option was not progressed since the waste vehicles are specialist and not comparable to the rest of the fleet.

At the Chair’s invitation Councillor Phil Larratt presented the report copies of which had been previously circulated. The report explained the arrangements for a new fleet of waste vehicles.

The recommendations were put to Cabinet.