Decision details

Supply of Workwear and Protective Clothing

Decision Maker: Executive Director, Resources

Decision status: Recommendations Approved

Is Key decision?: Yes

Purpose:

The contract with Arden Winch who currently supply workwear is due to expire on the 31st March 2022.  We are required to run a competitive procurement exercise to find a new supplier of workwear.  Based on the spend in Financial Year 2020-2021 of £1,066,519 we are required under the Public Contract Regulations 2015 to run a competitive tender process via the Find a Tender Service (FTS) procedure.

 

 

 

Decision:

That Executive Director of Resources:

 

1.    Approves the proposed procurement outlined in this report for a new contract of workwear and protective clothing to Sheffield City Council; and

 

2.    Following the conclusion of the proposed procurement, approves the 4-year contract being awarded to the organisation submitting the most economically advantageous tender.

 

 

Reasons for the decision:

Due to the spend in financial year 2020-2021 being over £1m, Public Contact Regulations 2015 and the Council’s Standing Orders state that we must run a competitive tender via the Find a Tender Service (FTS) procedure.

 

It is therefore recommended that we run an open FTS procedure which will be compliant with both Public Contract Regulations 2015 and the Council’s Contract Standing Orders.

 

Alternative options considered:

We have two alternative options as part of this procurement:

 

Option 1 - Sheffield City Council does not conduct a procurement process

 

Once the contract with Arden Winch & Co Ltd expires on the 31st March 2022, there is an option to do nothing. This would leave service areas without a contract to call off from and would force them to source products themselves. Not only would this lead to multiple suppliers providing the same products, non-compliance with the Council’s standing orders could possibly land us with some significant freedom of information requests and legal challenge.

 

Option 2 - Procurement via frameworks

 

We have considered making use of procurement frameworks to call off and direct award on such as the Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation’s (YPO) Workwear and PPE framework (ref 1022). Whilst the incumbent is a supplier on the framework and we can award the contract up to 4 years as desired, it removes the opportunity for local companies in Sheffield and the City Region and possibly reduce our carbon footprint.

Publication date: 06/12/2021

Date of decision: 03/12/2021

Effective from: 11/12/2021

Accompanying Documents: