Birmingham City Council is looking to set up its own framework agreement for the provision of guarding and related security services for council premises, for an initial two years with an option for another two. An invitation to tender is in July; the council proposes to evaluate in August, and award a contract on October 1, for mobilisation for a November 1 start.
The buildings would be public ones (above all the council house in the city centre) besides parks, depots, commercial buildings, council operated car parks, community-based sites, and schools; libraries, crematoria and cemeteries, temporary accommodation, learning centres and void premises.
A report to cabinet sets out that the city council is the single largest owner of property in Birmingham and holds the largest land estate of any UK local authority; some 26,000 acres. โThe portfolio is made up of retail, industrial, warehousing, workshops, offices, and a variety of other property types geographically spread across the city of Birmingham. The proposed Framework Agreement will consolidate all Security Services requirements across the Council seeking economies and efficiencies wherever possible.โ
Whoever wins the contract, then, will get all the councilโs security services work โ whether officers, install of surveillance cameras or (in the case of void schools, for example) remote monitoring. As that implies, the framework applies across the councilโs work โ car parks, parks, and housing.
Birmingham is looking to replace the Framework Agreement set in February 2021 for four years and due to expire in mid-March 2025. That work went to Profile Security Services Limited and SSG Support Services Group Ltd.
The estimate in 2021 was for a cost of ยฃ12m over four years (about a third of that covering housing). As so often with security or any contract, stuff crops up; in this case, the Perry Barr Regeneration Scheme (PRBS) scheme in 2022 which became the second largest chunk of work, pushing car parks into third, and meaning the annual spend went up by ยฃ750,000. While the council is looking to vacate and sell property in an โacceleratedโ disposal (or put another way, making โcashable savingsโ as it looks to balance its books), that would imply fewer assets will need guarding, the report added that โthe need for security services is expected to remain constant in the short termโ. The council went with two guard firms, or in the language of local government a โdual supply basisโ to mitigate the risk of โsupplier complacency and supplier failure if only one providerโ got the work. In other words, the council is changing policy. It explains this in terms of keeping two suppliers would โcreate a more administrative burdenโ than one and argues that the winner will be โfocussed and committedโ.
The council said it anticipated โhealthy competitionโ for the work, from local and national suppliers. The council appears to want it all, seeking โsufficient and appropriate security solutionsโ, at all times, besides reducing costs. The report to cabinet notes that many vendors compete on price only, adding: โThe risk of driving for the lowest cost at the expense of quality is a false economy. This will be addressed in the quality questionnaire by applying a balanced weighting between price, quality and social value.โ
The council does have in-house security officers, but the report comes down against going more in-house, explaining that โsalary grade for in-house security guards is above the market rateโ and because the council has โflexible requirementsโ it would have to look to outsource some work no matter how in-house it went. The report also recommends not using the various frameworks that councils and other public bodies can draw on, citing that to do so would โnarrow down the level of competitionโ.
Guarding readers will want to know how Birmingham proposes to weight its criteria. Quality will make up 30 per cent of the weighting, and of that half will be in terms of โService Delivery and Quality Managementโ, 20 per cent to โorganisation and resourcesโ and 10pc each to customer care, contract management, and โcontract mobilisation and provider off boardingโ. Only if you score 60pc or more on quality will you pass to the next stage of evaluation. Social value will count for 10 per cent of the contract โ which contrasts with the previous 20pc in council contracts. The report frankly states the lesser figure is due to the โfinancial pressuresโ on it, and admits to โlow profit marginsโ on this contract. Birmingham will measure social value mainly in terms of whether you employ locals (buying local doesnโt register) and partly on whether youโre a โgood employerโ. The bulk of the weighting, 60 per cent, then is on price: hourly, visit or shift rates, such as for locking and unlocking parks. That locking and unlocking isnโt missed, and is done to match the opening times of parks, are among the Key Performance Indicators; another KPI is number of security breaches.
As for wages, the council says the winning contractor will have to pay the โReal Living Wageโ; the council has for a dozen years signed up to the Living Wage Foundation, which outside London suggests an hourly pay of ยฃ12, compared with the legal minimum wage of ยฃ11.44 for adults since April. In the small print, the council sounds adamant it doesnโt want to go any higher. On the โsocial valueโ side, a contractor will have to comply with the โBirmingham Business Charter for Social Responsibilityโ. The report hints that the guarding of Perry Barr housing estates being built will become if anything more โblendedโ, that is, human guards and tech, even going towards physical guarding โas a last resortโ.
Background
Under the Conservative Government, in autumn 2023 the minister for local government Michael Gove appointed commissioners to Birmingham, to (in Goveโs words) โhelp return the council to a sustainable footingโ. In plain English, the city council is skint. Or in the more measured words of the commissioner in a report to the councilโs cabinet in June, โthe path to financial stability is very tight, with no room for missteps and delayโ. The council is not finding enough savings; in any case, like any other council it โfaces demand pressures and extremely challenging national public sector finances, irrespective of the results of the general election [won by Labour on July 4]. There is every possibility that the budget gaps in future years could grow. Against this backdrop, all capital and revenue expenditure undertaken by the council must be both affordable and necessary. This includes development projects planned by the councilโ. The sheer fact that central Government intervened, showed that Birmingham local government was in a bad way financially.
Photo by Mark Rowe; regeneration works, Birmingham city centre.
