Salford City Early Market Engagement

Notice for intention to engage in a Soft Market Testing exercise


Salford City Council (the “Council”) is at an early stage of evaluating delivery options for the provision of following services;

Planning and building control
Property and estate management
Highway network and asset management
Highway design engineering
Highway operational services

This is not formal facet of a procurement process, it is purely investigatory in nature, although the outcome may be used to assist the Council in defining a specification and contract model for delivery of the services above.

To support our considerations , it is the intention to hold some Soft Market Testing (preliminary market consultation) Workshops to review the current and future supply market strategies and trends. The same information will be gathered from all organisations, who wish to participate in the Soft Market Testing to assist the Council with reviewing its options for innovative and robust deliver models to provide the services above.

Salford City Council currently spends over £42m for these services annually. This advertisement relates to a proposed Soft Market Testing exercise only and is not a call for competition. Any contracts for services or supplies relating to this exercise will be subject to a separate procurement process in accordance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and the Council’s Contractual Standing Orders as may be required. All participants in this Soft Market Testing exercise shall be responsible for their own costs (including third party costs) and the Council shall have no liability to any organisation who wishes to participate.

Background

The Council is currently engaged in a Joint Venture with Urban Vision Partnership Limited to provide highways, planning, property and asset management services on behalf on the Council. This contract comes to an end in January 2020. The purpose of this Soft Market Testing exercise is to gain intelligence from the supply market for delivery models and other strategic considerations, for the provision of these services.
Urban Vision was formed in 2005 as a joint venture between Salford City Council, Capita and Galliford Try. This joint venture is a first of its kind in the UK, the partnership harnesses the expert skills and experience from both the public and private sectors.
Urban Vision now has over 350 employees delivering a wide range of schemes and services; from Building state of the art schools and colleges to delivering development control services for local authorities across the UK.
Salford City Council is the local authority of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It is a single-tier metropolitan district council, one of 10 in Greater Manchester and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, and provides the majority of local government services in Salford. Salford is one of only 16 areas in the country with a directly elected Mayor.

There are 60 councillors of which 49 are Labour, nine are Conservative, one independent and there is one vacancy. The city is made of 20 wards and 8 community committee areas. The council employs nearly 9,000 people making us the largest employer in the city and provides over 700 different services.
Salford City Council is a constituent council of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Greater Manchester led the way on city-region devolution through the 2014 Devolution Agreement.
The agreement gives the region additional powers, and greater accountability through an elected mayor.

The Questionnaire and Open Days

Organisations are invited to respond to the attached Market Engagement Questionnaire in writing along with providing details of their solution and organisation. Please confirm that your organisation is interested in attending a Council Soft Market Testing Workshop, where you will have the opportunity to further engage with the Council on a one-to-one basis. The Council reserves the right to cancel the invite to a Soft Market Testing Workshop in the event there is little market appetite for engagement.

Organisations that provide a response to the Soft Market Testing Market Engagement Questionnaire will be invited to attend a Soft Market Testing Workshop. These Workshops will be held during 2nd, 3rd and 4th August at the AJ Bell Stadium in Salford.

An agenda for the Soft Market Testing Workshops will be sent through separately. Please send your completed responses to the Questionnaire in Word-format (format unchanged) via the Chest by the closing date of 5pm on Friday 7th July 2017.

Any enquiries or clarification requests must be submitted in writing via The Chest portal. No questions, enquiries or requests for clarification may be submitted outside The Chest portal. All questions or requests for clarification must be received no later than 23rd June 2017. The Council will endeavour to answer all questions or requests for clarification as quickly as possible, but offers no guarantee that any questions or clarification requests received less than three (3) working days prior to the closing date.

The Council reserves the right to publish any question or request for clarification from an organisation, together with the Council’s response, on The Chest portal where it will be available for all to view.

No Soft Market Testing submissions will be considered without completing the documents in full and returning them in alignment with the instructions within the Soft Market Testing Questionnaire. Interested parties will not be prejudiced in a future procurement exercise e by any response or failure to respond to the Soft Market Testing exercise. A response to this Soft Market Testing advert does not guarantee any invitation to participate in this Soft Market Testing exercise.

The Council reserves the right to terminate the Soft Market Testing process at any stage.