Injunction stops council from sealing deal with maintenance contractor
Norwich rocked by procurement row
Norwich Council’s housing department has become embroiled in a second major dispute in just over a year after being prevented from awarding a £17.5 million housing maintenance contract.
The row comes just 12 months after Kristine Reeves, the authority’s former housing chief, was sacked for bringing the council into disrepute after allowing herself and other employees to move into a decommissioned sheltered housing scheme.
Having tried to award a five-year contract to Connaught to repair and maintain its 15,900 homes, the council was last week prevented from doing so by a High Court interim injunction.
The injunction was taken out by Morrison Facilities Services, which made an application for the court to intervene in a dispute over public procurement with the council, after its £23 million bid was rejected in favour of a £17.5 million proposal from rival firm Connaught.
Morrison felt the Connaught bid should have been subject to more checks because it was so low.
A five-day High Court hearing in the summer will decide the final outcome of the dispute.
A final judgement on the council’s building maintenance contract award is expected by the end of June.
A spokesperson for Morrison said: ‘Making an application for a court to intervene in a public procurement process is a highly unusual step, and is entirely unprecedented for Morrison.
‘The gravity of our concerns left us with no option but to seek an injunction.’
Peter Jones, chief executive of Connaught Partnerships, said it had undergone a lengthy and extremely rigorous procurement process to win the contract.
He claimed the basis of its bid offered the ‘best possible service and value for money’ for the people of Norwich.
The council announced the contract win in November last year, along with contracts for building maintenance, street cleaning and water testing worth more than £2 million, which were awarded to Morrison.
The firm has since declined to take up these projects.
Philip Hyde, head of legal, democratic and regulatory services for Norwich Council, said: ‘Naturally the council is disappointed the court saw fit to grant the application for an injunction against the award of the council housing repairs, maintenance and improvement contract.’
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Readers' comments (5)
simon stokes | 05/03/2010 8:27 am
And they think this doesnt go on in most Councils? Most maintenance contracts are politically motivated or worse, ours is a complete con with hundreds of thousands of pounds being paid over for work that never gets done! Well done Norwich for standing up to it.
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Repairman | 05/03/2010 9:15 am
We're in the process of 'outsourcing' our DLO etc and they recruited a consultant who said that we would need a contracts team of 12-16 staff to manage the new contract, to date we have 7 posts confirmed and only 4 filled with the contract due to start in the Summer. On top of that our surveying staff have been reduced by half to cover the same area which means that we will have to do less inspections even during the first 6 months of the contract, surely this can't be right as you won't be able to monitor the contract properly. All best practice information from other industry experts seem to have been ignored in the quest to throw our risks over to an external service provider but we are told that they will perform better for the same money and will provide a more measured and valuable service with major improvements and better focus on customer care. We'll wait and see shall we?
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Goober's Dad | 05/03/2010 9:33 am
@simon stokes - actually, it isn't Norwich who's standing up to it - it's Morrison, who are clearly aggrieved that they missed out on the contract!
Procurement's getting more and more of an issue these days, so don't be surprised if this is the sole case we see this year.
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Melvin Bone | 05/03/2010 9:36 am
Morrison Facilities Services sounds like a grumpy bunch.
I like the fact they won another tender but refused to take it up, more like the actions of an errant teenager than a proper business...
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AC Preston | 05/03/2010 4:45 pm
did they state the case that there's "More reasons to shop at Morrisons"?
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