Agenda item

Internal Resource  - Cllr S Kane - (C-001-2022-23) decision to award a contract with a total value of over £1m when totalled over the life of the contract.

That PSL Print Management Limited was directly awarded the Print to Post contact for a period of 3 years, with the option to extend for a further 2 years on an annual basis through the Crown Commercial Services Framework.

The Internal Resource Portfolio Holder introduced this report. The Council’s Procurement Rules required a Cabinet decision to award any contract with a total value of over £1m when totalled over the life of the contract. Agreement was sought from Cabinet to directly award PSL Print Management Limited a 3-year contract with the option to extend for a further 2 years on an annual basis. PSL Print Management Limited has proved to be flexible and keen to work in partnership with EFDC during their pilot period. Our Procurement Team had confirmed they were still the best value option on the Crown Commercial Services Framework. Furthermore, teams have made significant investments in terms of time and resources in the Pilot, therefore it was undesirable to have to repeat this work with a new provider. This would represent a saving over the way we used to produce our printed work.

Councillor Philip welcomed the savings this represented. Councillor Lion asked how would print be reducing over time due to digital interventions and changes to our systems. Councillor Kane replied that this was a pay as you go contract, so the less we printed the less money we spent. As all members now have iPad and recently access from their own devices; we should not have need for paper agendas as that was one of our highest expense items.

Decision:

That PSL Print Management Limited was directly awarded the Print to Post contact for a period of 3 years, with the option to extend for a further 2 years on an annual basis through the Crown Commercial Services Framework.

Reasons for Proposed Decision:

•           PSL Print Management Limited still provide best value for money on the Crown Commercial Services Framework;

•           PSL Print Management Limited has proved to be an excellent supplier during the pilot period by being helpful, flexible and working in partnership with EFDC;

•           Some teams have already invested greatly in terms of time and resource in this solution, so to change would create unnecessary work and pressure;

•           EFDC’s Procurement Team have researched and confirmed it was acceptable to directly award this Contract via the Crown Commercial Services Framework.

Other Options for Action:

To commence a full tender process. This option had been discounted as PSL Print Management Limited offer the best value for money under the Crown Commercial Framework when considering price and quality of service. During the initial procurement process and again more recently EFDC have researched Essex based print to post suppliers outside of the Crown Commercial Framework and although we found plenty of printing suppliers, none offered a print to post solution. Another reason for discounting a full tender process is due to the internal resource implications that would have on services that are currently using the solution. Using Revenues and Benefits as an example, the initial set up and programming took hundreds of resource hours whilst they worked through variations of templates to set up. This was a very complex piece of work and that particular service alone would not have the resource capacity to repeat that work with another supplier, due working on other projects such as moving their ICT application to the cloud.

Another option considered was partnering with another local Council for a shared Reprographics service. This option has been discounted as the Council are yet to hear back since reaching out to Councils across Essex to initially find out who’s Reprographics service remains in house. When the Council reached out a few years ago with the same query for outsourcing Council Tax annual billing, Uttlesford District Council were one of the only Councils to respond and when we offered to increase the volume of their current contract recently, they declined. EFDC were approached by Harlow District Council a couple of months ago as they are working through their own Accommodation Programme and are intending to implement a print to post solution themselves.