The council’s Cabinet voted to award six-year contracts worth a combined £35m a year, for vital services including responsive repairs, gas and water systems and lift maintenance.
The decision is the latest step in Lambeth’s commitment to radically redesign its repair and maintenance services to provide better quality, socially responsible and digitally-driven services.
Residents have been consulted widely during the process of agreeing the contracts, and they will be involved in monitoring the services to ensure the contractors perform to the standard required. Residents and officers also managed to agree more than 200 extra social, economic and environmental commitments – including jobs and apprenticeships, crime-prevention measures and tree-planting – without increasing the contract prices.
Tenderers were also encouraged to offer a corporate contribution, equivalent to 1% of the contract turnover, towards the council’s Social Value Programme -which is then used to fund social and environmental initiatives and improve equality within Lambeth.
The council has also ensured that it is not dependent on a single contractor for any service; and that contract relationships are directly with the service provider – minimising sub-contracting. Social value and innovation have been prioritised throughout the process.
Over the last 10 years, housing repair and maintenance services have been delivered via 13 long-term contracts, 12 of which went live in October 2010 and one in July 2016. These contracts have come to their natural end and the council wants to better align housing service delivery arrangements with its current ambitions. The combined annual sum of all the new tenders is £35.068m.
Word from the Cabinet
Cllr Maria Kay, Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness, said: “Through introducing more competition for council projects, our expectation is that the residents will have a better experience from our repairs service.”
“There will be a broad mix of expertise among the contractors, and the new pricing structure will act as an incentive for contractors to get the job right first time.”
“We have also secured an extra 275 social, economic and environmental commitments without increasing the contract prices. This means more employment opportunities for our residents and apprenticeships for our priority groups, as well as education, social and crime prevention projects. And it also means that we will plant an additional 2,000 trees every year.”
A report to the council’s Cabinet in March recommended awarding 10 housing maintenance and repair contracts and two reserve contracts as detailed from April 2021 to April 2027 for an amount of £219.556m. The proposals also included the option to extend for two further four-year periods to April 2031 and April 2034, for a maximum contract value of £549.070m.
The new contracts have been awarded Fortem, Wates, T. Brown, OCO, MPS, NRT Group, OpenView, RJ Lifts and Amalgamated Lifts.
All of the proposed contract awards are the result of a public procurement process compliant with the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEC) and each represents the most economically advantageous tender received and evaluated by the council against an agreed lot award structure and quality and cost ratio (60% quality; 40% cost).
Lambeth’s cabinet agreed a proposal to award 10 housing maintenance and repair contracts and two reserve contracts, in March 2021.
The contracts run from July 2021 to July 2027 for an amount of £219.556m, with the option to extend for two further four-year periods to July 2031 and July 2034.
