Monday 2 May 2011

Barnet Council - More Metpro questions

Metpro - The Scandal that won't go away

I have been supplied a list of questions sent to Barnet Council via an FOI request, pertaining to the Metpro scandal. I'm sure everyone will be most interested to see the answer to these.
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1) Please can you tell me if at time since 2006 The London Borough of Barnet has advertised in accordance with the Public Contract Regulations Act 2006 for the supply of any form of security services to the Borough in general or specifically for any of its premises or sites directly owned or leased from other landlords and managed by the Council?

2) Have any advertisements been placed in the prescribed format for the provision of any security service contracts to any part of the Council’s operations in the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union?

3) Was any Council officer(s) aware when it let the original contract to Metpro Rapid response that payments to that company might exceed the threshold of £153,000 over the ensuing four years?

4) Which officer(s)?

5) Once it became apparent that the payments to Metpro would exceed the threshold and open public tender would be required,  which officer(s) took the decision not to put the work out to public tender as required by the above Regulations?

6) In the light of the experience gained between 2006 and 2011 was the contract to let the contract in 2011 to Metpro Emergency Response put out to tender in accordance with the above Regulations ( the threshold is £156,442 from  2010)

7) Since 2006 which officer(s) has overall  responsibility for ensuring that contracts are let in accordance with the relevant legislation?

8)What policies and procedures have been in place since 2006 to ensure that all staff placing orders, entering into arrangements or letting tenders to suppliers of goods, services and contracts comply with the Public Contract Regulations Act 2006?

9) Which officer(s) has responsibility for monitoring that any policies are implemented in full?

10) How are exceptions to any procedures monitored and to whom are they reported?
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We await the answers from Jeff Lustig and Nick Walkley with interest.

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