SS17045 Highway Structures Professional Services Contract - Prior Information Notice (PIN)

Please refer to the PDF attachment.

Kent County Council (the Council) is the largest county council in England covering an area of 3,500 square kilometres. It has an annual expenditure of over £900m on goods and services and a population of 1.5m. The Council provides a wide range of personal and strategic services on behalf of its residents, operating in partnership with 12 district councils and 316 parish/town councils.

The Council is responsible for maintaining over 8700km of carriageways and 6300km of footways across the County. As the local Highway Authority, the Council is also responsible for the management of 2,220 highway structures. The varied and technical nature of structures asset management has meant that support from The Council’s term consultant has been routinely sought particularly in relation to principal bridge inspections and ad hoc technical advice. The Council’s current Technical and Environmental Services Contract is due to expire on the 31st March 2018.

As part of the Commissioning Cycle, the Authority is keen to understand market conditions before it develops its procurement strategy. The Council currently spends £450k per annum on principal and other special inspections, and a further £370k per annum on ad hoc technical support. However with a challenging forecast in public sector funding, it is likely this will be less in the future.

The current commissions include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Principal Bridge Inspections including trackside and rail bridge inspections – i.e. planning, programming, delivery and reporting in accordance with national guidance and our own policies
• Monitoring, structural assessments and feasibility reports
• Design including painting design
• Approval in Principal reviews in accordance with The Council’s Technical Approval Process.

Consultants who wish to express an interest must submit a brief overview of works and services they can provide. This is to be no more than two A4 pages (no less than font size 11) detailing their services, experience and past performance and previous clients.

The requested information must be submitted via the Kent Business Portal no later than 12pm (noon) on Wednesday 11th October 2017. Should the Council decide to proceed with a procurement process for a consultant to deliver these services, it is estimated that this will commence in the autumn of 2017.

Please refer to the PDF attachment.

PLEASE NOTE
Due to a system setup issue, it has not been possible to extend the deadline in the Market Engagement step and therefore this still states the original deadline of 12pm (noon) on 29th September 2017. If you respond after this initial deadline, you can either do so via the ‘Messages’ facility which you can find on the right hand side of the Kent Business Portal when you are viewing the ‘SS17045 Highway Structures Professional Services Contract - Prior Information Notice (PIN)’ opportunity. Or, alternatively, you can respond to craig.merchant@kent.gov.uk if you are having problems with the above step.