Public procurement notice: Modification Of A Contract/Concession During Its Term
Published: 2020-11-04
Buyer: Education Authority NI
Country: UK
Contract type: Works
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 45214000: Construction work for education buildings

Technical requirements: Term Service Contract for Mechanical and Electrical Maintenance and Minor Works — South Eastern Region Lots 1 and 2
Provision of planned and responsive maintenance works for EANI across its property portfolio in the old South Eastern Education and Library Board area, contract lot 3, and also now contract lot 4, which includes but is not limited to controlled and uncontrolled schools.
The Contract set out in OJEU contract notice was entered into by EANI’s predecessor as per the published contract award notice (Contract).Under the Education Act (Northern Ireland) 2014, existing contracts for all library boards (including South Eastern Education and Library Board) were novated to the EANI. The Contract was initially for a period of 1 year plus an option to extend up to a further 3 years and has already been subject to a further extension with the natural expiry of the Contract now being 1 May 2020 (Expiry). Contact lot 4 was also taken into the remit of this Contract and this will remain the case until the Expiry.
A procurement for a replacement Contract was expected before the Expiry, however, this has not proved possible. Firstly, organisational restructuring and analysis of performance requirements, through the survey and engagement with customers, resulted in delays. The procurement exercise has however commenced, with anticipated Contract commencement of 1 January 2021. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Contract commencement may be further delayed, with EANI having the option to further extend, in its absolute discretion, for two further periods of 3 months until 3 June 2021, if required.
An extension as outlined above is now required to allow a procurement exercise to be concluded, with any extension beyond 31 December 2020 at the absolute discretion of EANI.
The extension value is circa GBP 6 000 000 (when combining the value of lot 3 and lot 4). The value of the previous extensions is not relevant.
(i) Given that the new Contract will commence on 1 April 2021, or as soon as possible thereafter as permitted by the Covid-19 pandemic, commencement of a new contractor twice in in a short period of time, especially in the current climate, would create unnecessary risk to stability and integrity of services and be unsettling for users, knowing that another transition was imminent whilst failure to have a contractor in place could result in partial or total closure of schools; and
(ii) would cause significant inconvenience and duplication of costs for EANI. Financially, any new contractor would have initiation/start-up costs in attempting to recreate the current service for a currently unknown period of time, in what is a volatile and uncertain economic and social climate, which would represent poor VFM, compared to extending the Contract.
The upper estimate of the original contract lot 3 was GBP 48 000 000. The upper estimate of the original contract lot 4 was also GBP 48 000 000. As the extension is estimated to be up to a maximum of approximately GBP 6 000 000 for both lots, it does not exceed 50 % of the value of the original Contract.


Winner: LM Services NI Ltd