If you received a copy of the Otterpool Park newsletter that the District Council has sent out you will see that Tibbalds have been appointed as consultants to prepare detailed plans for phase one.
Our Green councillors were not aware of this appointment until the last meeting of the Otterpool Working Group a few weeks ago when one of the officers let slip that Tibbalds had been awarded the contract.
(The Otterpool Working Group is a cross-party group with one councillor from each political party. Cllr Jim Martin is our representative. Sometimes our Green Group Leader Cllr Lesley Whybrow is also invited to attend but not vote. It is not a formal decision making body but it can make recommendations to Cabinet. It meets in private with very limited minutes being published.)
Following the meeting Cllr Jim Martin requested sight of the procurement documents.
When these were produced he was shocked to see that the normal procurement process was not used. Instead senior officers had authorised a Waiver of Contract Standing Orders. This means that the contract was not advertised publicly as would normally be the case. Instead six companies were selected to provide tenders. It is not clear how these companies were selected.
The reasons given for allowing the waiver were urgency; that officers wanted to meet the consultants before they submitted their formal tenders so that the officers could make clear to the consultants what the council wanted; and that there is only a limited number of leading design practices with experience of large scale projects who have a good knowledge of the local area.
The council’s constitution does allow waivers in certain circumstances including urgency and if it is necessary if it is the most expedient manner for the efficient delivery of the service. However, it is not clear to us that these arguments outweigh the need for transparency – especially for such a controversial project.
We are not making any allegations of impropriety against any of the officers.
According to the tender summary, the six tenders that were submitted were assessed by a panel of officers including James Farrar who is the case officer dealing with the planning application which suggests that the ‘Chinese Wall’ which should exist between the planning and the strategic development departments of the council is not working well.
We put these points to the Head of Paid Services, Dr Priest. She assured us that the correct processes were followed when applying for the waiver and that the senior officers who signed it off would have carried out sufficient checks to make sure that it was justified. She acknowledged that there needs to be better communication with the councillors and more frequent meetings of the Working Group.
She said that James Farrar was only observing the evaluation of the consultants not taking an active part in the decision and promised to look into why the paperwork implied that he was a full member of the panel.
