Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2020-03-16
Buyer: Education Authority NI
Country: UK
Contract type: Works
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 45214000: Construction work for education buildings
Estimated value: 500000 GBP

Technical requirements: The award of a contract by Education Authority Northern Ireland (EANI) without prior publication of a call for competition in the Official Journal of the European Union, in respect of the continued provision of a term service contract for mechanical and electrical maintenance and minor works in the old North Eastern Education and Library Board area (Area 2), Contract lot 2 as further described in the OJEU contract notice.
Provision of planned and response maintenance for EANI across its property portfolio in the old North Eastern Education and Library Board area, Contract lot 2 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 North Eastern Education and Library Board) were novated to the EANI. The Contract was 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 31 March 2020 (Expiry) as set out in the VEAT dated 28 August 2019. The anticipated VEAT value of GBP 2 250 000 has not been spent. Rather in the region of 80-85 % of the VEAT was incurred.
A procurement for a replacement contract was expected before the expiry, however, this has not proved possible. The reason being that organisational restructuring and analysis of performance requirements, through the survey and engagement with customers, resulted in delays. The procurement exercise has commenced with anticipated contract commencement of 1 September 2020.
A further extension to 31 August 2020 is now required to allow the procurement exercise to be concluded.
Further additional services until 31 August 2020, which were not included in the original procurement, have become necessary and are permitted by Regulation 72(1)(b) of PCR2015.
(i) cannot be made for economic and technical reasons such as requirements of interchangeability or interoperability of services procured under the original procurement given the need to ensure continued access to the EANI estate including but not limited to controlled and uncontrolled schools. Given that the new contracts will commence on 1 September 2020, commencement of a new contractor twice in 6 months 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 5 months which is very short compared to the normal lifetime, representing poor VFM, compared to extending the Contract.
The upper estimate of the original Contract was GBP 8 000 000. As the 5-month extension is estimated to be approximately GBP 500 000, it does not exceed 50 % of the value of the original Contract.


Winner: LM Services NI Ltd
Award value: 500000