Agenda item

            The Committee was reminded that the Council’s Standing Orders 61, 62 and 63 determined how the Council managed the procurement of its contracts.  The general rule was that all procurements above the £30,000 threshold follow the United Kingdom and European Union legislative requirements.

            The Director of Property and Projects reported that Standing Order 62 set out how exceptions to the process should be managed whereby contracts could be entered into without following the legislation route.  Those were:

(a)  by direction of the Council;

(b)  in cases of extreme urgency; and

(c)  purchases through an auction.

            He pointed out that in cases of extreme urgency a Chief Officer must certify that that was the case, provided that they had first consulted with the Chairman of the appropriate Committee and the Director of Corporate Services (now the Director of Finance and Resources) and that the action was subsequently reported to the next meeting of that Committee.

            The Director explained that there had been three such extreme urgent cases in the previous month.  On each occasion a Chief Officer had certified that the procurement was of extreme urgency and, having consulted the Chairman of the Strategic Policy and Resources Committee and the Director of Finance and Resources, the procurements had been advanced.  All of those procurement exercises had been below the European Union threshold limits and were set out below:

·          the Council had approved the creation of a Director of Planning post to ensure that the necessary strategic direction and leadership was in place to deliver the new Planning function post 1st April, 2015 and a recruitment exercise had now been completed.  Should the recruitment exercise have failed to identify a suitable candidate to be appointed to the post or if an appointment had been made but there was a delay in securing a timely start date for the successful candidate, it was deemed prudent to have a contingency arrangement in place to commission the services of a suitably qualified person on an interim basis to provide Members with the assurance they required regarding the transfer of the Planning function.

·          the contract for environmental works at the North Foreshore had lapsed in anticipation of the proposed infrastructure work proceeding in conjunction with the development briefs being let for associated sites.  Only when the Council had understood the market interest and, therefore, the requirement to carry out further environmental work was it able to fully understand the extent of any new contractual requirements.  However, it had been deemed an urgent requirement to carry out movement of clay stockpiles which were in the vicinity of the proposed infrastructure works prior to the commencement of the works on site which had an extremely tight programme to meet the European Regional Development Funding requirements.

·          officers required specialist tax advice relating to the land tax and stamp duty implications of the contracts associated with the Council investment decision for new office accommodation. 

            The Committee noted the information which had been provided and that the contracts as set out had already been processed within the extreme urgent procedures.