Decisions

The current maintenance contract for the Gypsy Roma Traveller (GRT) sites around Surrey is due to expire at the end of September 2021. Therefore, there was the requirement to tender for a new contract.

As part of the procurement process, local suppliers were engaged as to encourage competition within this limited market. Two supplier responses were received and evaluated on price and a number of quality areas.

From the two tender responses, Millane Contract Services scored highest. This supplier provided a complaint quality response and most competitive pricing of £1,195,764 (tender pricing schedule sum).

Decision made:

It was AGREED that:

1. Millane Contract Services is awarded the contract for the GRT Maintenance with a tender sum of £1,195,764.00 (over the period of 4 years).   

In April 2019 the council took back responsibility for operating eight residential care homes for older people that had been previously operated by Anchor Hanover Trust under contract. The homes are:

Abbeywood, Ash Vale

Barnfield, Horley

Birchlands, Englefield Green

Chalkmead, Merstham

Heathside, Woking

Keswick, Great Bookham

Meadowside, Staines

Orchard Court, Lingfield

Following independent building surveys and a refresh of the council’s commissioning strategy for older people, the Executive Director for Adult Social Care considers that the council should consult publicly on the future of the care homes.

We want to ensure that care meets the future needs and aspirations of Surrey’s ageing population so that people can lead independent and fulfilling lives for as long as possible.

As a county council we’re focused on modernising care so it’s tailored to people’s strengths and needs - including through investing in extra care apartments with support staff always on hand and working to improve choice for people who have advanced or complex conditions by increasing the provision of more specialist residential care.

It was AGREED that a public consultation on the future of the eight residential care homes for older people, operated by the council, start on the 11 October and close on 5 January 2022.

The Education and Lifelong Learning Service is responding to a consultation on the way in which the “hard” or “direct” schools national funding formula might be implemented, in order to remove residual local discretion in allocating funding to mainstream schools. The consultation is largely about technical changes required in order to remove local discretion. It is not about the principle of a national formula as such. This is the first stage of a two stage consultation.

Decision made:

It was AGREED to submit the proposed attached response to the consultation outlined above.

Reasons for Decision:

The responses to the consultation will be submitted to Government so that it can be considered in relation to any future decision on the proposal.

See Minute 166/21.

RESOLVED:

1.    That Cabinet note the Council’s forecast revenue and capital budget positions for the year, including the reset capital budget.

2.    That Cabinet approve a £3.9m drawdown from the Infrastructure capital pipeline to fund an increase in the capital budget for Local Highway Schemes.

Reason for Decisions:

This report is to comply with the agreed policy of providing a monthly budget monitoring report to Cabinet for approval of any necessary actions. 

(This item can be called in by the Resources and Performance Select Committee]

RESOLVED:

1.    That Cabinet notes and agrees the financial details associated with the decision to agree the business case for the delivery of Phase 1 of the Surrey Outdoor Learning Development (SOLD) improvement programme at Thames Young Mariners (TYM).

2.    That Cabinet notes the proposal for Option 3 as set out in the RIBA Stage 1 Report (Annex 1).

Reason for Decisions:

See Minute 169/21.

(The decisions on this item can be called-in by the Children, Families, Lifelong Learning & Culture Select Committee)

RESOLVED:

1.    That Cabinet approves the total funding of £6.2m. This comprises £4.2m to be transferred from the current pipeline within the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) that was approved on 9 February 2021 as part of the capital programme. An additional £2m of capital investment has been identified through this business case to enable a comprehensive rebuild of the site, address significant repair and maintenance requirements and to extend and enhance the site’s facilities which will generate additional income for the Council.

Reason for Decisions:

Capital development at Thames Young Mariners will enable SOLD to realise the potential in the site through a significant increase in service capacity, supporting the Council’s strategic priorities for children, young people, and families by providing bespoke programmes of personal development, appropriate education, skills training and family support. It will further enhance SOLD’s ability to work in partnership with services across the Children, Families and Lifelong Learning Directorate to support vulnerable children and young people including children with a social worker, young people in contact with the criminal justice system and children missing education. Whilst focussing on children and young people, the facilities will also be available for all ages to support the Council’s broader strategic objectives.

Commitment to the £6.2m capital investment would allow TYM to offer an all year-round programme. The lack of year-round residential and day facilities means the site can only operate April – October, with five months of no significant on-site activity. Market testing confirms that post-pandemic there is considerable unmet demand from the customer base for year-round and residential facilities.

The proposed investment will see TYM contribute significantly to the long-term financial sustainability of SOLD as the investment will be self-funding through the net surplus created each year. In addition, site assessments of the current property confirm that the facilities are increasingly unsafe and require urgent backlog maintenance works of £0.4m simply to make the site safe and facilities usable in the immediate term. Site assessments also confirm that in the next five years, a further £0.9m of capital forward maintenance will be required to maintain the facilities at an acceptable, safe standard.

In the mid to long term period, by proceeding with the proposed £6.2m capital investment programme at TYM, the Council will in total reduce its net maintenance liability by approximately £1m over the next ten year period as the current site is in very poor condition and will require significant works to maintain the standards of the building and surrounding site.

In the longer term, should the proposed works not proceed, in addition to the most urgent maintenance requirements, there is also a further requirement of maintenance works over the next 30 years of £1.68m based on an annual estimated cost of £56k for building and external areas. Lack of further investment will also put the achievement of planned revenue generation from TYM (circa £235k per annum by 2025/26) at serious risk.

(The decisions on this item can be called-in by the Children, Families, Lifelong Learning & Culture Select Committee)

RESOLVED:

1. That Cabinet grants Approval to Procure a contract for the provision of the supply of Water and Wastewater Services.  The new contract will start on 1 February 2022.

2. That authority for the contract award decision be delegated to the Executive Director for Resources.

Reason for Decisions:

This will allow Surrey County Council (SCC) to compliantly procure a contract for water, wastewater and ancillary services which will be designed to provide improvement in quality and reduction in cost of the current level of service provided to date.

(This item can be called in by the Resources and Performance Select Committee]

RESOLVED:

1. That Cabinet approves the award of the Term Maintenance Contract to the successful bidder; and authority be delegated to finalise and enter into contract with the successful bidder to the Executive Director for Environment, Transport and Infrastructure in consultation with the Executive Director for Resources and the Cabinet Member for Transport and Infrastructure.

Reasons for Decisions:

For several years, the Council has worked with private sector partners to deliver highway maintenance and improvement activities across the county on its behalf, and with the current arrangements expiring in April 2022 a new contract arrangement needs to be determined.

Following approval of the Procurement Strategy in September 2020, officers from Highways and Transport supported by officers from across the Council including Procurement, Legal Finance and Strategic Commissioning have conducted a “Competitive Procedure with Negotiation” procurement exercise to identify the next Term Maintenance provider.

Following the recent completion of that procurement process, officers are now able to recommend the contract be awarded to the most “economically advantageous” bidder as explained in the Part 2 report.

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Communities, Environment and Highways Select Committee]

RESOLVED:

1.    That Cabinet Approves the addition of £3.2m to the capital programme from Government’s GHG LAD grant funding, for 21/22 (less 1% revenue costs for SCC admin).

2.       That Cabinet delegates the approval to accept any future government grant funding for the purposes of decarbonising housing in Surrey to the Capital Programme Panel.

Reason for Decisions:

The recommendations in this report contribute towards the delivery of two of the dial up areas in the refreshed organisation strategy. The first is supporting a greener future in Surrey. Housing in Surrey accounts for 28% of the county’s carbon emissions. This is a challenging sector in which to achieve net zero carbon by 2050 due to lack of funding and incentive for homeowners to install insulation, renewable energy and low carbon heating measures. The GHGLAD programme helps to overcome these issues by providing a full grant to low-income households for decarbonisation measures.

The second dial up area is tackling health inequalities. Approximately 7% of households in Surrey are in fuel poverty^[1], which largely impacts upon low-income households and is linked to increased winter illnesses and deaths. The GHLAD programme helps to reduce fuel poverty by providing grant funding to improve the energy efficiency of energy inefficient homes resided in by fuel poor households.

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Communities, Environment and Highways Select Committee]

RESOLVED:

1.    That Cabinet approve the policy on the use of safety cameras in Surrey presented in Annex 1.

Reason for Decisions:

Higher vehicle speeds increase the risk of collisions. Also, the higher the speed the more severe the consequences are likely to be. Safety cameras have proven to be a very effective intervention to reducing casualties at the worst casualty hotspots where speeding or failure to comply with red traffic signals have been part of the problem.

In more recent years there has been greater use of average speed cameras as these can encourage greater compliance with the speed limit over a longer stretch of road compared with spot speed cameras. The policy presented here will ensure that safety cameras will continue to be deployed effectively in Surrey to reduce road collisions. It also allows for deployment at other locations to reduce the impact of speeding traffic in local communities where there might be concerns over air quality, noise pollution and congestion. It will also free up police officer enforcement resources to be deployed to tackle other locations.

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Communities, Environment and Highways Select Committee]

RESOLVED:

1.    That Cabinet approve the procurement of services to deliver the Mole Bridge replacement scheme as part of the Capital Structures 2022/23 programme.

Reasons for Decisions:

The scheme will replace a bridge that has reached the end of its life and will make improvements to other aspects of the highway environment. This includes wider carriageway lanes and additional footway provision as well as improved visibility at the adjacent junction for all road users.

The termination of the existing Highways Term Partnering Contract and implementation of new Contract in April 2022 poses a risk to the delivery and the required timescales of this project. An alternative procurement route is therefore required, which will be determined through a procurement report.

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Communities, Environment and Highways Select Committee]

See Minute 170/21.

RESOLVED:

1. That Cabinet grants approval to procure a contract for the provision of Surrey Online School. The new contract will start on 1 September 2022. This will be a 3-year contract with the option to extend by an additional two years in 12 monthly increments, making the possible contract term 5 years in total.  Current estimated annual value is circa £310,000 so total cost over the maximum 5-year period could be up to £1,550,000.

2. That authority for the contract award decision be delegated to the Executive Director for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning and the Cabinet Member for Education and Learning.

Reason for decision:

To comply with the Procurement and Contract Standing Orders agreed by the Council in May 2019 and to provide Cabinet with strategic oversight of planned procurement projects for 2021/22.

A new contract is required to meet the statutory obligation of Surrey County Council by providing quality assured learning experiences online for vulnerable children and children with additional needs.

(The decisions on this item can be called-in by the Children, Families, Lifelong Learning & Culture Select Committee)

RESOLVED:

1.    That Cabinet agrees the changes to Spelthorne Joint Committee constitution, to reflect the change from a Cabinet to a Committee system within Spelthorne Borough Council, as set out in this report and Annex A.

Reasons for Decisions:

To ensure that the Joint Committee constitution is fit for purpose.

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Resources & Performance Select Committee]

Surrey County Council (SCC) has a statutory duty to support disabled children, young people and their families. Personal Support is part of the short breaks offer but is a specialist service and is only available following assessment. 

Personal Support is home-based care, primarily used by SCC’s Children with Disabilities team to provide families with respite care (short break), in accordance with their assessed needs. Personal support may also be used to provide other types of support such as emergency or crisis support and support outside the home for children and young people to access and be included in social and leisure actives in their local communities.

The services provided through the new contract will be available to all of the Children’s Services teams and the procurement value reflects this scope.

The new DPS for Personal Support Services will commence on 1^st April 2024 and it will be in place for 3 years, up to 31^st March 2027. There is also an available extension of 2 years taking this to 31^st March 2029.

It was AGREED that:

1.           A contract is awarded to European Electronic (subcontracted to Coolspirit) under the NHS Digital Workplace Solutions (DWS) framework.

The Council is seeking to appoint a Planning Consultant team to provide Planning Consultancy Services to manage and monitor the design development and construction stages of the identified sites up to and including the Planning achievement of and delivery of the Extra Care Housing and Supported Independent Living Programme; Surrey Outdoor Learning (SOLD); Highways Refurbishment; New Fire Stations and Training Centres; Looked After and Adopted Children (LAAC); School and Mixed Use Developments. This programme of works will include essential maintenance works.

The scope of work for each project comprises the Planning Consultancy Services (in conjunction with Project Management, Cost Management and Contract Administration; Lead Designer, Principal Designer & Architect Services consultant undertaking the design work; and Engineering Services) to enable the achievement and completion of all tasks associated with the achievement and production of a Feasibility Study, the Employer’s Requirements for construction services as necessary to successfully enable design, delivery and handover of the project.

It is envisioned that there will be one Planning Services Consultant to assist the Council in achieving full planning approval for the Capital Programme of Works.

The recommended route to market was to conduct a Direct award under Panel 2 – Planning of the South Ridge Joint Venture Framework.

Estimated Contract Value (including extensions) is £5,000,000.

It was AGREED that:

1. The successful bidder E W Beard Ltd is awarded the contract

It was AGREED that:

1.           Vail Williams is awarded the contract.