Agenda item

Holly Wilson, Head of Strategic Procurement presented a report which detailed all Waivers and Breaches to the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules (CPR’s) for the period 1st March 2021 to 31st August 2021. The report provided a summary of the number of new Waivers and Breaches recorded for each directorate since the last audit report presented to Committee in October 2021 for comparative purposes. Further details regarding each waiver and breach were summarised in Appendices 1-3 of the report.

Members were informed that between the periods February to September 2021, there had been 3 new breaches, as detailed in Appendix 1 of the report. It was reported that one breach had been resolved, however, there remained three existing unresolved breaches. There had been an increase in the amount of waivers granted from the previous period reported to the Committee in April 2021, which had increased from 15 to 18. The Head of Strategic Procurement highlighted that as the Council was still in recovery stage following Covid 19, there had been some delays in the commissioning cycle and that many existing contracts had been extended to allow time for commissioning practices to occur. Further to the Committee’s request at a previous meeting, Appendix 3 of the report had been updated to incorporate information regarding the percentage of the number of waivers, versus the amount of contracts that had been awarded for the reporting period, including the value of those contracts.

The Head of Strategic Procurement responded to questions from the Vice-Chair, Councillor Glen Bluff seeking clarity as to the reasons for the waivers in respect of Waivers, 4, 10 and 15, as set out at Appendix 2 of the report, it was noted that :-

• The waiver in relation to the ‘Extra Care Housing’ (Adult Social Care Directorate) had been put in place as an interim measure for 6 months to allow a procurement exercise to take place due to delays in the commissioning of the contract, as a consequence of having to deal with Covid-19 outbreaks. The procurement process had now been completed and a new contract had been awarded which was anticipated to commence in January 2022.

• With regard to the ‘Homelessness Accommodation and Support Service’, in the Adults. Health and Wellbeing Directorate, this was part of a wider programme which linked to the Council’s Homeless Strategy which was a complex area as many of the contracts tied in with the overall Strategy. Significant changes were to be made to the commissioning model for homelessness provision due to complex historical issues with the leases which needed to be resolved before the contract could move forward.

• The waiver in the Economy and Environment Directorate with regard to ‘Ecologist Planner’, related to monies given to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (YWT) regarding biodiversity gains land. The Council own a piece of land that is adjacent to land that is owned by the YWT. Due to the proximity of the land, the Council have entered in to an agreement with YWT to manage and fence off the land on behalf of the Council, to be sold for a biodiversity gains project. The Council would generate income from the contract, however, the Council had pay out an initial fee to YWT to manage the land.

Following further questions from the Vice-Chair seeking further clarity in relation to the Homelessness Accommodation and Support Service waiver, the Director of Corporate Resources reiterated that the Homelessness Accommodation was part of a wider programme which linked to the Council’s Homeless and Rough Sleeping Strategy, which set out the Council’s strategic approach to tackling and preventing homelessness. The Council had commissioned consultants Imogen Blood to carry out a review of Doncaster’s homelessness and the whole system that supported homelessness provision. She outlined the context and the complexities around the review of the Homelessness Strategy and spoke of the challenges for the Council in having to re-engineer a whole systems approach which involved different partnerships with different elements of service delivery. The Director of Corporate Resources further explained that the Strategy was established pre-pandemic. The Council was transitioning its services, then the Covid 19 pandemic had placed additional pressures on the Council to provide emergency rental and hostel accommodation which was provided by external providers and had created further complexities. There were different commissioning cycles to meet the Strategy, which had been had been delayed and impacted by the Covid pandemic with staff being deployed elsewhere focussing solely on the Covid response, therefore a waiver had been sought and was granted due to the delay in the commissioning cycle.

In response to a question from the Vice-Chair querying whether the waiver had been granted out of necessity to avoid a breach occurring, the Head of Strategic Procurement provided assurances that the waiver was not granted to avoid a breach to CPRs.  The Adults Commissioning team had sufficient plans in place and had effectively planned for the contract in advance.  She explained that there was robust processes in place to examine waivers and due to the value of the contract, the Monitoring Officer would not have authorised the waiver without him having the confidence to do so.  It was further explained that the Council had no other option than to grant the waiver and spoke of the critical need to continue with the service delivery of the homelessness provision as the Council had an obligation to provide hostel provision for homeless people.

The Director of Corporate Resources explained that the Council had an obligation to provide hostel provision for homeless people and had to respond to the demand in homelessness due to Covid-19. The Council had no other option than to grant the waiver.

In answer to a question from the Vice-Chair which had been submitted in advance of the meeting, the Head of Internal Audit having reviewed the waivers, gave assurances that the Council has robust governance arrangements in place and that all due processes had been followed in relation to the approval of the waivers for the current reporting period and the waivers granted from the previous 6 months, the majority of which had been signed off by the Monitoring Officer, with the remained by the Section 151 Officer.  Many of the themes used for the waivers, related to the Adults, Social Care. He explained that the staff usually involved in carrying out the commissioning work and dealing with contracts had been re-directed elsewhere dealing with operational issues, such as helping homeless people in to safe accommodation therefore, this had impacted on their ability to re-tender contracts and at that time it was not appropriate to go to market, due to suppliers not being in a position to tender and due to inflated pricing in procuring a new contract.

The Head of Strategic Procurement outlined that the Government had recognised that the pandemic presented extremely challenging circumstances and a difficult environment for both suppliers’ ability to tender and the Council to procure contracts. The government had therefore issued advice and guidance to local authorities in relation to Procurement Policy Notices 02 and 03. The Head of Strategic Procurement had subsequently issued guidance to Officers across the Council and discussions had taken place with suppliers.

A Member acknowledged that the Homeless Accommodation was a complex issue, which required changes to the system in place in order to provide better outcomes for both the residents of Doncaster who were effected by homelessness and the residents that it impacted by those who used the services. Whilst assurances had been provided that the correct procedures had been followed in granting the waiver, the Vice-Chair felt that this should be investigated and requested that Internal Audit carry out a review of the Homeless Accommodation and Support Service waiver. The Head of Internal Audit undertook to look at this.

In referring to breach regarding the Conservation contract, it was noted that controls were working effectively.

In response to a question regarding Archives Storage, the Head of Internal Audit advised that the breach was being managed and was confident that this would be resolved.

The Chair noted that the number of waivers continued to be higher than pre-Covid-19 and the majority of which had been extended due to Covid-19 related pressures being cited as the reason.  He asked what checks were carried out by the Procurement team to ensure that the requests for waivers were genuine as a result of dealing with Covid-19 related work and not due to an oversight or Covid-19 being used as a reason to grant the waiver. The Committee was reassured that all waivers cited as Covid-19 being the reason for the waiver were robustly scrutinised by the Procurement team and the Head of Strategic Procurement prior to being sent for authorisation by the Monitoring Officer or Chief Financial Officer. The Strategic Procurement team continued to work closely with directorates across the Council to monitor the situation.

In response to questions from the Chair whether it was expected that there was to be a reduction in the number of Covid-19 related waivers in the future and that the Committee be provided with an indication in terms of what was expected in the next reporting period as to whether these would be reduced, the Head of Strategic Procurement confirmed that the majority of waivers that were currently being processed had been anticipated and therefore had been put in place at an early stage. She stated that she had not had sight of the figures for the next reporting period, however she anticipated that there would be a reduction in waivers going forward. She pointed out that there was still a lot of recovery work being carried out due to Covid-19. Additional pressures were put on teams in receipt of funding from central government to support Covid-19 in having to spend the monies quickly and to ensure that it was commissioned in compliance with Contract Procedure Rules. This could potentially be problematic as waivers may need to be authorised to avoid losing the monies.

To conclude, the Chair, in recognising that Covid-19 related waivers could continue for some time, requested, that a report be submitted at the next meeting, to provide Members with information on the status of contracts across the Council and their preparedness to be able to be renewed without breaching Contract Procedure Rules or requiring a waiver

RESOLVED to

(1)       note the information and actions contained in the report regarding Waivers and Breaches in relation to the Council Procedure Rules;

(2)       note any new procurement and contracting activity matters; and

(3)       a report be submitted at the next meeting of the Committee, to provide Members with details in relation to what new waivers are coming into the system and what is in the current system for the next reporting period; as to whether waivers had reduced or continued to increased.