The Director of Regeneration and Place has decided to award a contract to Bloom Procurement Services Limited under the NEPRO3 Agreement – Construction, Design and Engineering – sub lot Project Management and Employer Agent Services for a contract term of 2 years and 7 months at a contract value of £166,803.84. The services provided will support the development of the new Birkenhead Market pursuant to a sub-contracting arrangement with IMB Management Limited with an associated collateral warranty with the Council.

NEPRO3 is a fully compliant procurement framework which assists the UK public sector to buy and manage specialist professional services from a choice of regional and national suppliers. Bloom Procurement Services Ltd (Bloom) is the UK’s exclusive operator of the NEPRO solution, on behalf of NEPO (the North East Procurement Organisation).

The Council has in a place a formal contract with Bloom to buy and manage specialist professional services.

Bloom has been instructed to appoint IMB Management Limited via a direct award under the NEPRO3 Agreement – Construction, Design and Engineering – sub lot Project Management and Employer Agent Services to support the Birkenhead Market project across RIBA Stages 4-7. This will be accompanied by a collateral contract warranty.

IMB Management Limited have been selected due to their previous work on the project developing the RIBA Stage 3 – the continuation will ensure project knowledge is maintained along continuity of services across the project which will avoid delay and abortive costs in onboarding a different supplier. The day rates have been benchmarked to ensure value for money.
The design and build of the market will be undertaken by an appointed contractor to be procured separately and covered via future report. The project management and employer agent services will ensure successful management and administration of the building contract.

The contract value is £166,803.84.

The Council could endeavour to deal with the work encompassed by this contract, in house. However, the Council does not currently have the capacity – the services required are specialist construction professional services.

A full procurement process could have been facilitated, however would have resulted in risk to the work programme, abortive costs and disruption to the project.