Contractors write to Ealing over waste contract

The not for profit organisation won the seven year contract this December (see letsrecycle.com story).

In a letter to Helen Harris, monitoring officer for Ealing, the Public Contractors Association which represents the other companies that tendered, has questioned the contract awarding process.

The letter stated: “It is difficult to understand how ECT was invited to bid in the first place. Although this company – which I understand is in receipt of grant fundings from the council – has experience of recycling, it has no experience (in terms of holding contracts for these services with public bodies) of domestic refuse collection or street cleansing.”

It continued: “Article 44 of the consolidated EC procurement Directive states quite clearly that 'the contracting authority may not include candidates who do not have the required capabilities.”

There has been some speculation by the PCA that Ealing changed the way it evaluated the bid from what was originally proposed. The council assessed the bid using a basis of 70/30 quality although the association thought that the quality figure might have been reduced to 60% with a consequent higher figure for cost of 40%. In the past Ealing has been advised by its officers that affordability of the contract is a major concern and that the 70/30 quality/cost split might have needed revisiting.

Lease

There were also claims that the borough has sold a lease for a significant proportion of Ealing's only depot to ECT. The association believes that this hands a competitive advantage to one applicant that is not enjoyed by other bidders.

The letter to Ms Harris also voiced other concerns about the contract awarding process.

Bids for the tender are believed to have been received from Accord, Cardinal (KBR), Cleanaway and Onyx. Onyx is believed to have withdrawn its bid upon realising it had a bidding error in its tender. (Contrary to information from the Public Contractors Association, Verdant did not submit a tender for this contract nor seek tender documents).

Response

Ms Harris said “We will be responding in detail to the letter from the Public Contractors Association in the New Year. However, we are confident that our choice of contractor for our Clean and Green contract is the outcome of a rigorous and robust tendering process, which assessed all five companies that submitted tenders on a number of preset and objective criteria related to quality and price.

“Every stage of the process was presented to and approved by a Scrutiny panel made up of representatives of all three political parties in Ealing. At the final meeting where the recommendation was announced, the panel concluded that they were fully satisfied that the procurement process met standards of probity, and was technically and commercially sound,” she said.