£1.4m to be spent on consultants procuring new Northamptonshire highways contract

The procurement of the new highways contract could tie in Northamptonshire's two new unitary councils for the next decade
The contract could tie in the new councils for ten years or more.The contract could tie in the new councils for ten years or more.
The contract could tie in the new councils for ten years or more.

A highways authority with just nine months left to run will spend an ‘eye-watering’ million pound sum on procuring a new roads contract that could lock in the new unitary councils for the next ten years.

Northamptonshire County Council’s Conservative administration agreed yesterday (July14) to spend £1.4m on a team of consultants to draw up a new procurement contract for a company to take over the maintenance of the highway network for Northamptonshire.

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KierWSP has run the contract for the past 12 years, but a scrutiny review of the service carried out last year found that the authority was not monitoring the circa £50m annual contract as well as it should been and the contract was not providing value for money.

Last year, in a decision made behind closed doors for commercial reasons, the Conservative administration which has been at the helm of the authority during its years of decline, decided to extend the contract until July next year with a possible extension until April 2022.

But despite the two-year safety net, the outgoing authority, which only has nine months before its abolition, will move ahead with lining up a new contract and effectively take options away from the two new West and North unitary councils.

This has been done with the agreement of current leaders of Northamptonshire’s eight councils and there was a meeting held in Corby some months back to agree on the issue.

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The highways contract is typically the largest and most expensive contract a local authority will procure. Over the past 12 years the council has spent hundreds of millions of pounds with KierWSP.

The sum being spent on an ensemble of legal, commercial and financial advisors, was met with concern by some councillors who took part in the virtual meeting via video.

Liberal Democrat leader Chris Stanbra said the sum was ‘astonishing’ and Labour leader Cll Bob Scott questioned why the authority did not have the expertise internally to draw up the contract and said in North Northamptonshire there was some appetite for the a highways contract to be provided in-house and wanted to know whether this had been considered.

There was some confusion by councilors about when the contracts would be signed before or after the new West and North unitary councils were created.

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Cllr Scott asked Cllr Smithers: “How confident are you the process will be completed and signed off by vesting day?

Shoud not the incumbent authority be the ones to sign off after vesting day? After all they are the ones who have to run with it if they accept the terms of it.”

Cabinet member for highways Cllr Jason Smithers admitted the sums were ‘eye watering’ but said there was a lot of work to do. He said there was no reason why the new unitaries would not adopt the new contracts and the agreement should run for ten years which was usual in the market. It will be for the new shadow unitary councils to decide whether the contracts should run as separately or as one contract.

NCC’s chief executive Theresa Grant defended the multi-million pound spend on consultants saying the amount was ‘average’ and said the contracts would be signed post vesting day by the new authorities.

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The funds for the consultants will be paid by NCC as well as money from the business rates pilot which was agreed by the council leaders group in June.

The authority delegated the responsibility of signing off the new procurement contact to the council’s director of strategy and transformation as well as portfolio holder Cllr Smithers.

The authority is also spending multi-millions on a firm of consultants from Newton Europe to help transform its adult social services department. A public report on the amounts paid so far to the company, which has links to the authority’s government appointed commissioner Tony McArdle, has not yet been produced.