Companies in court over council tender

Jamie MacDonald • Published 18 Nov 2009 09:54 6 Comments

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THE companies tendering for Clackmannanshire Council's kitchen and bathroom replacement contract spent last week at Edinburgh's Court of Session.

The court case is the result of a bungle by council officials which saw the £1.4 million contract handed to the wrong business after Pyramid Limited and Sidey Limited were given each other's ratings in tallying the scores of their applications.

Pyramid were awarded the contract in July that Sidey later found out represented poorer value for money than their bid.

The decision to hand the contract to Pyramid constituted a breach of Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations by not giving it to the most economically advantageous bid.

Last week's appearance at the Court of Session was held to decide which tender will be given the contract, which could be worth a further £700,000 if an acceptable performance is received.

One concerned local has been following the civil dispute and he told the Advertiser, "The case to now has been severely disappointing from my perspective as a rate payer. In court the council have made no attempts to resolve their obvious, and admitted, mistakes. They appear to have taken a position of casual indifference and have left it to the two contractors involved to argue the matter out.

"Despite having admitted to the court that the council wrongfully awarded the work to a lower standard of contract, the council's legal representatives have not signalled any intent to resolve this and achieve Best Value for their tenants - a task that I believe they are legally obligated to achieve by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 2003.

"The legal representatives of Pyramid have used every effort to ensure that they retain the incorrectly awarded contract, that should have been awarded to Sidey Limited. Sidey have argued that the contract with Pyramid be set aside and they should carry out the contract that they fairly won on principles of best value."

He added, "At this point it seems that as a result of a series of legal wrangles on the part of Pyramid, and indifference on the part of the council, the tenants of Clackmannanshire are to receive kitchens and bathrooms from the contractor of a lower standard of works than they would have, had the council got it right to begin with."

The errors in the kitchen and bathroom tender allocation were compounded by the council's failure to adhere to a 10-day 'standstill' period to allow unsuccessful tenderers the opportunity to raise complaints and apply to court to prevent contracts being awarded incorrectly.

It also transpires the notification fax advising Sidey they had been unsuccessful was sent to the wrong number and they did not receive any further information within the period.

The court's findings on who will carry out the work and any compensation costs are expected to be announced in the next four to six weeks.

Grahame Blair, the council's director of Services to People, said, "Clackmannanshire Council sought to resolve this issue through informal channels as soon as possible, but these means were rejected and the parties involved chose to go to court for a swift and authoritative outcome.

"The Council's priority is that this matter be resolved as quickly as possible to allow its programme of kitchen replacements to continue and we have sought and acted upon sound legal advice to this end.

"All parties which tendered will have already passed a pre qualifying stage, making all of them eligible to carry out the work."

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Jimmy Neebur
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Nov 18, 12:53
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Anither cooncil mistake... surely not. 'Bungle' seems to feature frequently in cooncil business these days. I'll no be surprised tae see them employing Zippy and George next.

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John Curran
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Nov 19, 17:45
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Despite submitting a fully compliant tender a third lower than the nearest rival, the consultant and council decided to award he contract to ano party.

Collusion, corruption...who knows, but definitely not in the public interest...!

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Angus
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Nov 20, 08:00
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This is yet another example of the Councils complete incompetence and the contempt to which they regard the general public and in particular OUR money. Collusion? Corruption? who knows, but recent and past events such as the tender for running the leisure bowl, planning permission to demolish listed buildings and erect shops and flats, sale of Zones, sale of council owned football parks to build houses etc etc ... all need closer scrutiny!

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bob
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Nov 22, 07:43
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'Bungle' seems to feature frequently in cooncil business these days. I'll no be surprised tae see them employing Zippy and George next. is it no funny that all those bungles seem tae come from the same department in thon fancy building in kilncraigs. how about gettin in bob the builder

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Greg Arius
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Nov 26, 10:05
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Mair Bungles than a "Rainbow" lookalike compettion

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Jimmy Lafferty
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Feb 4, 12:16
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Is it a bungle? Im not so sure, wont be the first nor the last..Count how many bungles they have in the new financial year 2010-2011, you will be surprised just how badly things are run.

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