The Head of Housing Technical Services briefed Committee on the process that begun in summer 2021 to appoint a new Repairs, Maintenance and Voids contractor.

This would be a key appointment given that it was one of the drivers of tenant satisfaction, and the Head of Technical Services and his team had put a considerable amount of time into the process to study lessons learnt from previous procurement activities and ensure the most thorough and professional procurement exercise possible.

The decision to award a longer contract provided greater value for money for the Council and the contractor, and the security would allow the contractor to invest in digital enhancements that would bring about carbon reductions and benefits to the local economy.

A number of workshops were held with prospective contractors, with a significant emphasis on the need to deliver the service in a modern and dynamic way, which would be simple to access for tenants and provided real time data to allow accurate contract reporting and management, as well as real time data to residents giving them updates on repairs and arrival times.

As part of the procurement there was also the requirement to detail how contractors had collaborated with clients to continuously improve existing services to tenants through innovation and performance measures.

Officers were also keen for prospective contractors to commit to a pure electric fleet over the term of the contract, and it was anticipated when their next fleet renewal came about strong consideration would be given to moving the fleet electric.

The Head of Housing Technical Services confirmed that a mobilisation period would soon begin with the new contractor to ease them into the contract and avoid beginning the contract in 2023 with an abundance of repairs to deal with.

The Head of Housing Technical Services and the Committee Chair thanked the existing contractor for the work undertaken throughout their time with Runnymede, adding that performance had not tailed off despite the contract drawing to a close.

Responding to a Member question about how KPIs would be measured in the event of fewer callouts, the Head of Housing Technical Services advised that his team would switch from being reactive to proactive and spend considerably more amount of time on the post-quality side of the work, whilst minute-by-minute data would be captured on a dynamic scheduling system.

The Committee thanked the Head of Housing Technical Services for the hard work and detail put into tendering process, feeling the bar had been set for future procurement exercises across the entire Council.

Resolved that –

1)         Housing Committee approved the appointment of the contractor listed in the report under a JCT contract for the time period listed in the report based upon delivery of performance measures.

2)         Housing Committee gave further approval to that obtained in September 2021 to the increased cost of the procurement due to inflation (further to CSO 2.5 (b)(iii).

3)         Award letters to the winning contractor and unsuccessful bidders should not go out until Committee approval received in September 2022.