Sewage, refuse, cleaning and environmental services

Description

Modification of a waste collection, recycling and street cleansing services contract entered into with Veolia ES (UK) Limited [“the Contractor”] on 21 May 2015, commencing on 5 October 2015 and expiring on 30 March 2031, subject to a break option effective on 4 October 2023 exercisable by the Authority [“the Contract”]. The total value of the procurement (excluding VAT) for the full duration from 2015 to 2031 - 136 000 000,00 GBP to 150 000 000,00 GBP. This notice relates to the proposed modification of an existing contract in circumstances set out below whereby the modifications do not require a new procurement. 1) The Contract was awarded to the Contractor following a procurement procedure commenced by a Notice published by the Council in the Official Journal of the European Union on 3 June 2014 and conducted under the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (“the Procurement”). 2) Prior to the Procurement, the equivalent services deliverable under the Contract were provided by another company [“the Incumbent”] for the Authority. 3) During the Procurement the Authority received information from the Incumbent relating to the tonnages of various materials in the Council’s waste stream which were collected by the Incumbent during the course of providing the services under its contract with the Authority. 4) The information provided by the incumbent was given to all tenderers for them to use in the formulation of their tenders during the Procurement and subject to a disclaimer of liability absolving the Authority in the event any of that information was inaccurate. The information was used by the Contractor as the base data on which it formulated those aspects of its tender to which the information related. 5) There has been no material changes to the composition in the waste stream or increase in the volumes of waste that are the subject of the Contract since commencement of the Contract. 6) The Contractor has informed the Authority that post commencement of the Contract the tonnage figures of the various materials in the information referred to in 3) above was flawed and did not reflect the actual composition of the waste collected by the Contractor since and during the course of providing the services under the Contract. In particular the Contractor has informed the Authority that:- (i) The actual tonnage of wood recovered from the waste collected was less than half specified in the tonnage information. That reduction adversely affects the Contractor’s achievement of recycling targets in the Contract; (ii) The residual waste tonnage was approximately 6000 tons per annum more than the figures specified in the Incumbent’s information. Collecting and handling this additional residual tonnage increased the tendered/estimated cost to the Contractor of providing the services under the Contract as the increase necessitated additional collections and crews and prejudiced the Contractor’s ability to achieve recovery targets. (iii) The volume of paper and card/ dry recycling volumes specified in the Incumbent’s information was overstated by approximately 2400 tons per year. 7) During the Procurement and at all times prior to the date of the Contract, the Authority was not aware, and had no reasonable way of knowing, that the Incumbent’s information contained inaccuracies. 8) In the above circumstances, the need for the consequential modifications to address the inaccurate information has been brought about by circumstances which a diligent contractor could not have foreseen; the modifications do not alter the overall nature of the contract; any increase in price does not exceed 50% of the value of the Contract. The modifications are considerably less than 50% of the value of the Contract; in addition, they are offset by other adjustments to the Contract in favour of the Authority. As a result the modifications are not substantial.