Decision details

Further to the budget savings proposal to cease the in-house delivery of street lighting maintenance, the Report will seek permission to procure a new Term Service Contract for the maintenance and installation of street lighting and associated equipment within the Borough. (Please Note: This report will only be submitted to Cabinet should the budget savings proposal be approved at Council on the 2nd March)

The Cabinet considered the report of the Head of Locality Services - Commissioned which provided details of the proposed method of procurement and the basis of tender evaluation for the street lighting maintenance and installation term service contract.

Decision Made: That

(1)       approval be given to the proposed method of procurement and evaluation as set out within the report;

(2)       the Head of Locality Services Commissioned be authorised in consultation with the Cabinet Member – Locality Services to award the contract to the highest scoring bidder; and

(3)       the Head of Regulation and Compliance be authorised to enter into contracts with the successful Tenderer.

Reasons for Decision:

The Council had a statutory duty to maintain its Street Lighting asset. Historically this had been delivered via the in-house Street Lighting Team with support from external sub-contractors. Following the recent budget savings report, the Council had decided in March 2017 to decommission the in-house Street Lighting service. Therefore due to no other suitable alternative arrangements being available, the Council now needed to source an external provider / Contractor to deliver the service. By procuring a new service provider the Council would continue to fulfil its statutory duty.

Alternative Options Considered and Rejected:

The Council had consulted with the five other Authorities within the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to establish how they deliver their own street lighting maintenance activities and whether they would have the ability to deliver Sefton’s service moving forward through their existing service provision. The responses received confirmed that they would be unable to assist due to their existing contractual arrangements. Therefore this only left the option to undertake a competitive procurement exercise.