Durham County Council has just announced that a £4.2 million pound waste collection bin project has been awarded to a German company despite a British company tabling a bid for £250,000 less.
Darren Knowd, Durham County Council’s corporate procurement manager, said the authority had followed all EU regulations and clearly set out how the contract would be awarded. DCC also said The council was “very committed” to providing opportunities for local companies and awarded more than 55 per cent of contracts to North- East firms, but legally it could not favour UK bidders.
There is no excuse of hiding behind EU regulations to send jobs
abroad when it can be done at a cost of £250,000 less in the
UK.
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1 On 2nd March 2011 Cabinet approved the implementation of the
Twin Bin Scheme. This included reference to a detailed
implementation plan being developed by the Waste Programme
Board.
2 The Council is required to operate very transparently &
therefore needs to apply award criteria very carefully &
objectively.
3 The ESPO framework was chosen as the preferred procurement route
as it contained all of the UK leading suppliers for wheeled
bins.
4 For additional information - There were no north east based
suppliers involved in this procurement process & even when NEPO
established the north east regional framework no north east bidders
submitted tenders.
5 The tender evaluation model was established on a 60% Price &
40% Quality split with the Price element being based on the total
cost of the supply to residents’ households.
6 The Quality element was considered to be very important & was
based upon three aspects:
a) Specification compliance & a sample bin tested on the
Council’s range of waste collection vehicles. This was scored
on a Pass/Fail basis
b) (25%) the supplier’s ability to demonstrate how it would
manufacture & deliver the project within the required
timescales, & this also included such aspects as project
management, transport arrangements, communications
requirements.
c) (15%) the supplier’s ability to co-ordinate the project
covering aspects such as the implementation process, contract
management, operational personnel, equipment & vehicles &
reporting mechanisms.
7 This was a high value contract & it was made very clear to
suppliers that the contract would not be awarded on Price alone, as
it was important that the winning supplier had the ability to meet
the Quality requirements with regard to delivery timescales & a
direct service delivery & communications to residents.
8 Taking into account the Price & Quality aspects of the
contract the winning bidder (ESE Ltd.) scored 93.1% & offered a
total project cost of £4.2 million.
9 The other suppliers’ scores ranged from 63.9% & 75.6%
& this demonstrates the higher quality demonstrated in the bid
from ESE Ltd.
10 ESE Ltd. offered the second most competitive price & was the
most competitive overall, & demonstrated to the evaluation team
that that they could deliver the project.
11 It should be noted that the lowest priced supplier was ranked
4th out of 5 in the overall evaluation.
12 ESE Ltd. is a UK company based in Coalville Leicestershire. ESE
Ltd. is part of ESE World BV & the company is ultimately is
owned by Stirling Square Capital Partners which has its offices in
London.
13 ESE Ltd has a UK warehousing & distribution site & also
operates two main manufacturing sites in France &
Germany.
14 The wheeled bins for DCC will be manufactured at their French
site & the project management & delivery roll-out will be
managed by some of their 28 UK staff & their UK
sub-contractors.
15 ESE Ltd. provided the most economically advantageous tender by
satisfying the evaluation team that they had sufficient
manufacturing capacity, were able to meet the required DCC
timescales & provided greater overall assurance of a successful
project.
16 It is important to note that the Council cannot take into
account the location or origin of a company in its evaluation
process & must make its decisions based upon the evaluation
criteria set out in the procurement process.
17 The Council has followed a rigorous procurement exercise &
we followed the process set out properly.
18 It should also be noted that some of the unsuccessful suppliers
would have potentially had to use some of their non UK
manufacturing to meet the high DCC volume requirements.
19 ESE Ltd is UK based see 12.
20 The Council is confident that it has selected the best supplier
available for this project & a successful rollout will provide
important savings towards the medium term financial plan as well as
improve recycling rates & customer satisfaction to its
residents.