To receive an update from the Head of Procurement & Contracts.

Martin Gibbs, Head of Procurement and Contracts referred Members to a copy of the Exemptions Register, pages 57 to 60 of the Agenda refer.

Members were invited to put their comments and questions forward.

A Member thanked the Head of Procurement and Contracts for providing the information and stated that he would not like to see the list get too long.

Members were advised that since April 2023, the Council had signed off five exemptions.  The exemption process had been followed each time and the form initially reviewed by the Head of Procurement and Contracts or the Procurement Team.  It was then sent to the Section 151 Officer, the Chief Executive, the Portfolio Holder for Finance and the Portfolio Holder for the relevant service area for approval.

The Head of Procurement and Contracts provided further information for two areas highlighted as follows:

Regulatory (Building Control) – Interim Building Control Surveyors to cover vacancies in the ELDC Building Control Team, page 58 of the Agenda refers.

The Head of Procurement and Contracts advised Members that the Council had lost two members of the team in quick succession, and whilst going out to recruitment needed someone in to fill the post and noting that it was a post that was hard to recruit to.  Initially the Council went through a direct award framework which was a procurement compliant route with a company to get a building control surveyor in post.  However, this was unsuccessful in sourcing a suitable person into the role.  This contract terminated without any payment being made, and a number of other agencies were market tested and two people were resourced from G2 Recruitment and British Resourcing Group.  If a procurement process had been undertaken to get someone into the post there would have been a four to six-month gap with no surveyors in place which would have caused a real issue.

Growth – Interim Delivery Consultant to deliver Levelling Up Funding (LUF) Projects (x two entries), page 59 of the Agenda refer.

The Head of Procurement and Contracts advised Members that there had been a large delay in getting the funding in and then a further 9 to 10-month delay for work to start on the projects.  There was no resource in-house to do this amongst all the other projects that were ongoing.  Market testing was undertaken and an interview process, whereby an appointment was made employed on a consultant basis to ‘hit the ground running’.

A Member thanked the Head of Procurement and Contracts for the detail provided stating that it was interesting to see the history of the situation and whether any lessons could be learned.

A Member referred to the internal control and monitoring and queried where the information was held and if it was separate for each council or on one database.  The Head of Procurement and Contracts advised Members that the exemptions register was a separate spreadsheet and due to the very small numbers was not on a database.  All exemptions are added to the register and would remain on until it was either approved and fully signed off or alternatively rejected.  The Procurement and Contracts Team had a system where the details of 300 plus contracts were retained, and triggered review dates, following which contact would be made with the client council officer.

A Member asked for assurance that the person employed from Heritage Lincolnshire in relation to the LUF project had the relevant qualifications and experience to carry out the role.

The Head of Procurement and Contracts responded that he would take the query away and provide a response for Members.

N.B.  Matthew Waller, Head of Internal Audit, Assurance Lincolnshire and Samantha Knowles, Chief Finance Officer, PSPS Limited left the Meeting at 11.27am.