Community Safety, Security & Resilience
222 Upper Street
N1 1XR

Report of: Corporate Director of Homes and Neighbourhoods

Date of Decision: 22 June 2023

Ward(s): All

____________________________________________________________________________

Subject: Contract award for Islington Patrolling Service

Synopsis

Following the outcome of the procurement process this report seeks approval to award a contract for patrolling services in respect of crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB).

The service provides proactive and reactive patrolling in areas of high ASB and crime as well as across four separate but interconnected services, as follows:

Anti-Social Behaviour Patrols (ASB Patrols): A predominantly out of hours Patrol Service supporting the Council’s Anti-Social Behaviour First Response Team

Cemetery Patrols: A daytime Patrol Service covering the Council’s three cemeteries

Late Night Levy Patrols (LNL Patrols): A Patrol Service which provides policing and medical support between midnight and 6am

Parks Patrols: A daytime and out-of-hours Patrol Service covering all the parks and open spaces in the borough

Recommendation

To award the contract for patrolling services to Parkguard Ltd for a period of up to a maximum of eight (8) years (48-month contract and two x 24 month extension periods).

Date the decision is to be taken

22 June 2023

Background

Nature of the service

The existing Patrolling Services contract was procured in 2017 in response to anti-social behaviour across Islington and at the cemeteries that the Council operates through Islington and Camden Cemetery services (ICCS). The core function of the service is to provide a visible and recognisable uniformed presence, to detect, deter, disrupt and eliminate anti-social behaviour, crime and disorder. The contract to be awarded is for a service of reactive and proactive targeted patrolling in the council’s green spaces, housing estates and town centres and more widely across the borough, with the aim of reducing anti-social behaviour and crime.

In partnership with other agencies in the borough, such as the Metropolitan Police, Council services, and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust, the service provides assistance identifying and supporting vulnerable people, including homeless people and those with mental and physical disabilities, carrying out welfare checks as required, and taking appropriate action where necessary.

Anti-Social Behaviour Patrols: this team works seven nights a week for a total of nine hours a night and responds to anti-social behaviour calls such as disruptive behaviour in open areas, issues with rough sleepers, gatherings of youths, issues due to drug taking etc. The team also carries out patrols in hotspot areas, generally on the borough’s housing estates during times when there are no complaints to attend.

Parks Patrols: this team is overseen by Greenspace, and patrol the Council’s parks and green spaces, as well as providing a response to any complaints that come in regarding these locations. They work primarily during the day, up until approximately 10pm, and are on duty seven days a week.

Late Night Levy Patrols: this team is funded by businesses who are subject to the borough’s Late Night Levy charge and therefore provide a response to licensees who are experiencing issues with customers and patrol areas where there are known issues with licensed premises, in order to provide general support. The team also contains a medic, who is able to provide immediate first aid to those who may need it. The team works four nights a week, generally Thursday to Sunday, between the hours of around 8pm to 6am.

Cemetery Patrols: this team is overseen by ICCS and patrols three locations: Islington and St Pancras Cemeteries and Crematorium; Hampstead Cemetery; and Trent Park Cemetery. Patrolling services are provided seven days a week between the hours of 10am-6pm, while a static presence is provided at Islington and St Pancras Cemetery seven days a week between the hours of 9am-5pm.

Estimated Value

The contract will be funded using an existing budget for Patrolling Services. The approach is collaborative, working across services to ensure value for money is delivered.

The spend on the existing contract is financed by the following means:

Core budget

Housing Revenue Account (HRA)

The Late-Night Levy charge to licensed premises in the borough that operate after midnight

Cemeteries income and a ringfenced budget from Islington and Camden Cemetery Services (ICCS)

Housing associations that reimburse the Council for the costs of patrols undertaken on their estates

The total contract value is £11,701,000 which represents an average cost forecast of £1,462,607 per annum based on an initial contract term of 48 months plus an additional two optional 24-month extensions at the sole discretion of the Council. The maximum term should all extensions be taken will be 96 months.

The pricing schedule submitted by the recommended provider was in line with the published indicative budget and meets the required flexibility that the service requires.

Opportunities for efficiency improvements and cost savings were embedded in the contract’s specification. Robust contract management processes will ensure the contractor, contract manager and any other relevant parties, will meet regularly to discuss more responsive initiatives that will reduce anti-social behaviour and manage resources.

Clear KPIs and service standards will be agreed during the mobilisation process, with tangible outcomes, milestones and review dates identified, in order to more clearly demonstrate the contract’s impact. Greater use will be made of resident panels and other forms of consultation, both to inform service changes and target resources and spend, as well as to improve the contract’s visibility, strengthening the Council’s reputation.

Timetable

The current service will continue through the re-procurement process and will then enable continuity of service beyond the current contract end of 9 July 2023.

Award: June 2023

Contract start: July 2023

Options Appraisal

A detailed options appraisal was included in the approved procurement strategy. A summary of the four procurement options explored is set out below:

Option	Recommendation
Do nothing	Not recommended Doing nothing risks an increase in anti-social behaviour across the borough.
Deliver the service in-house	Not recommended This would be an extensive undertaking and would require significant investment of funding, officer time and high levels of training.
Use of an external framework	Not recommended None of the external frameworks explored offered a suitable solution.
A competitive procurement process solely for Islington	Recommended option The proposed option is to procure through a competitive tender. This would be the quickest route to market that meets all Council’s requirements.

Key Considerations

As part of the quality criteria, tenderers proposed approach to Social Value and promoting economic, social, and environmental sustainability was given an award criteria of 20% weighting; the recommended provider addressed social, economic and environmental aspects of social value in their response to the method statement question.

In their tender return, the recommended provider made the following social value commitments:

Social; the provider added value to their offer through their strong social benefits including pathways into work for young people and those with limited work experience.

Economic; the provider made several commitments on economical benefit, including a community support fund and a commitment to provide free community events each year for the duration of the contract; this included events in the areas of responsible dog ownership and safety of women and girls.

Environment; within the tender, the provider detailed a significant increase in electrical vehicles from their fleet and a commitment to make their fleet completely hybrid within a year. The provider also estimated that they would achieve a net zero target 3 years ahead of their target.

Additional value is added by the provider through its objectives underpinned by their equality policy and this includes governance, engagement, vulnerability, transparency and recruitment.

The service will implement a robust performance-monitoring framework so that value for money, quality, outcomes, and cost effectiveness can be assessed regularly; as part of this the provider has committed to use of intelligence led deployments in order to increase efficiency and reduce the cost of administration.

London Living Wage is a condition of this contract and the recommended provider pay this within their organisation.

Evaluation

The tender was conducted in one stage, known as the Open Procedure, as the tender is ‘open’ to all organisations who express an interest. The Open Procedure includes minimum requirements which organisations must meet before the rest of their tender is evaluated.

The Council has a duty of care to its residents under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Failure to carry out this responsibility as an integral part of this contract’s delivery would result in the Council not complying with this regulation, which could lead to legal action and reputational damage.

In order to mitigate this risk, the tender process requires bidders to specifically outline their approach to diversity.

The procurement documents were published on the London Tenders Portal on 10 March 2023. The deadline for submission of tenders was 10 April 2023; three providers expressed an interest and had access to the procurement documents. One of the providers were eliminated as they were non-compliant. Both remaining providers that expressed an interest were assessed to see if they met the advertised minimum suitability requirements; one of the tenders did not meet the suitability requirements and was therefore eliminated.

The tender which met the minimum suitability requirements had their responses to the published method statement questions and pricing, evaluated for the patrol contract.
The tender evaluation award criteria used was as follows

The method statements were used to assess the award criteria as shown below; the weighted score column shows the scores achieved for each question:

Tender Award Criteria	Achieved Score	Achieved Weighted Score	Applicable Weighting
Social Value	Exceeded	16	20
Customer Service / Diversity	Met	6	10
Work volumes / Priorities	Exceeded	8	10
Health & Safety	Exceeded	8	10
Quality Management	Met	6	10
Mobilisation / Resourcing	Exceeded	8	10
Maximum possible weighted score	52	70

The recommended provider’s awarded score when you apply the weighting means they achieved 52% out of a maximum 70% for quality.

The recommended provider’s overall weighting for both Pricing and Quality are shown below:

Agreed Weighted Scores
Total weighted quality score (out of a maximum of 70%)	52%
Total weighted pricing score (out of a maximum of 30%)	30%
Overall weighted score	82%

Business Risks

The business risks were thoroughly assessed when preparing the procurement strategy.

The Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklist) Regulations 2010 explicitly prohibit the compilation, use, sale or supply of blacklists containing details of trade union members and their activities.
Following a motion to full Council on 26 March 2013, all tenderers will be required to complete an anti-blacklisting declaration. Where an organisation is unable to declare that they have never blacklisted, they will be required to evidence that they have 'self-cleansed'.
The Council will not award a contract to organisations found guilty of blacklisting unless they have demonstrated 'self-cleansing' and taken adequate measures to remedy past actions and prevent re-occurrences.

The following relevant information is required to be specifically approved in accordance with rule 2.8 of the Procurement Rules:

Relevant information	Information/section in report
1. Nature of the service	The service delivers borough-wide patrolling services in the specific areas of anti-social behaviour, cemetery patrols, Late-Night Levy patrols and parks patrols. See paragraph 4.1
2. Estimated value	The estimated value per year is £1,973,750. The agreement is proposed to run for a period of 48 months plus an additional two optional 24-month extensions (4+2+2). See paragraph 4.2
3. Timetable	As shown within the body of the report See paragraph 4.3
4. Options appraisal for tender procedure including consideration of collaboration opportunities	The recommended option was to procure through a competitive tender using the open procedure. This was be the quickest route to market that met all of the Council’s requirements. See paragraph 4.4
5. Consideration of: Social benefit clauses; London Living Wage; Best value; TUPE, pensions and other staffing implications	The service has clear impacts on social value and these will be embedded in the quality element of the tender process. LLW will be a requirement of the successful service provider. Best value will be achieved via regular contract review meetings. See paragraph 4.5
6. Award criteria	The contract will be awarded to the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) and the award criteria was set at 70% quality and 30% cost. See paragraph 4.6
7. Any business risks associated with entering the contract	Owing to economic uncertainty, risks have been identified both in terms of a suitable service provider not being identified, as well as risk that the successful service provider will pull out of the contract during its life. See paragraph 4.7
8. Any other relevant financial, legal or other considerations.	See paragraph 5

Implications

Financial Implications

The contract bid from Parkguard Ltd was within the indicative budget for the patrol contract.

Parkguard Ltd are the current provider for the patrol contract and therefore there will not be any TUPE implications.

The current annual cost of the patrolling service is around £1.44m with a total value of up to £15.79m over the maximum contract length of 8 years. The current contract is funded by multiple sources.

Legal Implications

The Council has various powers and duties under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to tackle anti-social behaviour within the borough. In discharging these functions the Council has powers to conduct patrolling services under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972 which enables the Council to carry out any activity that is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the discharge of any of its functions. The Council may enter into contracts for such services under section 1 of the Local Government (Contracts) Act 1997. The Executive may provide Corporate Directors with responsibility to award contracts with a value over £2,000,000.00 (Procurement Rule 18.1.3).

The proposed contract is a contract for services. The threshold for application of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (the Regulations) is currently £213,477.00 for services contracts. The value of the proposed contract is above this threshold and was therefore advertised on the Find a Tender Service (FTS).. The Council’s Procurement Rules also require contracts of this value to be subject to competitive tender. The contract was procured by advertising a call for competition via the Open Procedure which is in compliance with the Regulations and the Council’s Procurement Rules.

Following evaluation Parkguard Ltd were the highest scoring tenderer and accordingly the contract may be awarded to them subject to the tender providing value for money for the Council.

Environmental Implications and contribution to achieving a net zero carbon Islington by 2030

The service provider will support the Council’s zero emissions goal and have committed to making their fleet 100% hybrid within one year. They also plan to achieve net zero carbon three years earlier than the London target of 2030.

Equalities Impact Assessment (EQIA)

The council must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and to advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations, between those who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not share it (section 149 Equality Act 2010).

The council has a duty to have due regard to the need to remove or minimise disadvantages, take steps to meet needs, in particular steps to take account of disabled persons' disabilities, and encourage people to participate in public life. The council must have due regard to the need to tackle prejudice and promote understanding.

An Equalities Impact Assessment was completed on 24 October 2022. There were only neutral or positive impacts, however, while there were no specific ‘negative’ impacts identified as part of this impact assessment, it is clear that the Patrolling Services contract has a clear and tangible impact on a number of specific groups, including the protected characteristics and other groups, such as homeless people, or people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol

Conclusion and reasons for the decision

Following a successful public procurement process, this report recommends awarding the new contract for patrol services to Parkguard Ltd to start on 10 July 2023, when the current contract ends.

Record of the decision

I have today decided to take the decision set out in section 2 of this report for the reasons set out above.

Authorised by:

Date:	22 June 2023

Appendices:

Equality Impact Assessment.

Report Author: Dan Lawson, Assistant Director Civil Protection
Tel: 020 7527 2690
Email: daniel.lawson@islington.gov.uk

Financial Implications Author: Steve Abbott, Head of Finance

Tel: 020 7527 2369

Email: Steve.Abbott@islington.gov.uk

Legal Implications Author: Mark Ferguson, Senior Commercial Contracts and Procurement Lawyer

Tel: 020 7527 3099

Email: mark.ferguson@islington.gov.uk