Agenda item

This report provides the Committee with an overview of the procurement Waivers between January 2025 and December 2025. In the year there were a total of fourteen waivers, with a cumulative spend of £479,121.

The Committee received a report that provided an overview of the procurement Waivers between January 2025 and December 2025. In the year there were a total of fourteen waivers, with a cumulative spend of £479,121.

The following matters were considered:

a)    Contract Register: In response to a Member statement that the online contract register was out of date the Assistant Director for Corporate Services responded that the register was published every quarter and was due to be updated now.  He would let Members know when this was done for this quarter.

b)    Waiver report presentation: A Member asked why this was presented on a calendar year basis rather than the fiscal year.  The report author would be asked to provide a response following the meeting.

c)    Contract and Waiver details: A Member detailed several anomalies that he had picked up on when looking at previous contracts on the register, previous freedom of information details and waivers.  He undertook to email further details of these to the Chair following the meeting. He asked the following questions which would be responded to following the meeting:

·                why there were three highlighted waiver forms not seen as contracts in the December 2025 contracts register and

·                what had changed in the contracting and waivers processes to ensure there was no repeat of the

d)    Waiver criteria: A Member suggested that the committee could better monitor the validity of waivers if it could reference an existing criterion that were relied on when the waivers were implemented rather than typical reasons why they've been granted. The Assistant Director of Corporate Services explained the process an officer follows for seeking a waiver.  The form to be completed requires very detailed information on the individual circumstances on why normal process cannot be followed and sent to directors for approval.  Therefore, the aim of contract standing orders in not necessarily to capture every single circumstance but the principles behind that, with the individual circumstances being set out on the form.

e)    Carter Jonas/Rainbow Centre: A Member queried where Carter Jonas obtained what's described as their in-depth knowledge of the structure, fabric, plant, machinery used at the centre. If the Council had carried out the necessary survey last summer prior to the handover, why could it not rely on that survey? The Assistant Director for Corporate Services explained that before the procurement exercise for the Rainbow Centre was begun Carter Jonas were commissioned to carry out a very detailed survey of the whole leisure centre, which would be used as the basis for any future tenders, and for operators to make assessments of the state of condition of the leisure centre. Hence, they had an in-depth understanding and knowledge of the leisure centre.

f)      Correction of verbal statement made by officer: At the end of the meeting the Assistant Director for Corporate services corrected his earlier verbal report that this item had been discussed previously at this Committee and confirmed that this was in fact the first time of being considered at Audit and Scrutiny Committee.

Following consideration, it was resolved to (5 for and 1 abstention):

(1)           Note the Waivers used in 2025.