Catherine Murphy
Question:
339. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Justice the details of each contract placed in each of the years 2015 to 2019 and up to November 2020 for works awarded to a company (details supplied) by the Prison Service other than for those services specifically provided for in the schedule at appendix 1, Requirements and Specifications of the Request for Tenders dated December 2013 as published by the Prison Service; and if she will provide a schedule of contracts that were awarded following a specific procurement and tender procedure for those works and contracts in which no procurement procedure or tender was issued. [27268/21]
View answer
I am advised by the Director General of the Irish Prison Service that the information requested by the Deputy is not readily available.
However, the information is being collated by the Irish Prison Service and will be forwarded directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.
The following deferred reply was received under Standing Order 51
I refer to your recent Parliamentary Question Number 339 for written answer on 20 May 2021 with regard to details of contracts placed by the Irish Prison Service to a named company (details supplied). A response to the question was not available at the time as the information requested was not readily available as it required a manual examination of records and I undertook to respond to you as soon as possible.
[the details of each contract placed in each of the years 2015 to 2019 and up to November 2020 for works awarded to a company (details supplied) by the Prison Service other than for those services specifically provided for in the schedule at appendix 1]
I can inform the Deputy that the company referred to was the successful tenderer in the 2013-2015 tender process for Facilities Management Services undertaken by the Irish Prison Service. In this regard, a contract was awarded on 15 December 2014 to the company in question for the provision of these services and the contract was scheduled to run from 02 February 2015 until 01 February 2019.
I can also inform the Deputy that the company was also the successful tenderer in a tender competition for Facilities Management Services, which was run by the Office of Government Procurement on behalf of the Irish Prison Service from 2018 to 2020. The current contract for Facilities Management Services came into effect on 20 July 2020 and is scheduled to run for seven years.
The Deputy will be aware it is normal in tender exercises that the consequential contractual agreements with the successful tenderer are not just limited to the details contained in the Request For Tender (RFT) as issued at the time of tendering, and they incorporate an extensive suite of documents including for example:
- The tender documentation
- Tender Workshop Discussions/Presentations
- Clarifications
- Minutes of Meetingz
- Pre contract discussions
- The Letter of Acceptance and associated attachments
- Ongoing contractual discussions, amendments and agreements between the contracting parties.
All of the above applied to the 2013/2015 tender competition for Facilities Management Services.
The Letter of Acceptance issued in December 2014 stated an annual amount of €1.5M (vat exclusive) based on the outcome of the tender exercise and related only to planned preventative maintenance, as the then potential value for reactive maintenance was unknown (in common with such contracts). Following the tender there were discussions with the winning tenderer (and advice from the Chief States Solicitor’s Office and the Technical Advisors) culminating in rates being agreed, for callouts and management costs for reactive, urgent and emergency maintenance.
However, given that the annual cost of reactive maintenance would have been available in the years prior to the tender, I am advised that it is accepted by the Irish Prison Service, that notwithstanding some uncertainty around these costs, a more comprehensive estimate of the annual value of the contract should have been provided in the tender documentation, including the letter of acceptance. As it transpired, the reactive maintenance costs were multiples of the planned preventative maintenance costs. A more comprehensive estimated cost has been included in the recent tender process.
I am advised by the Irish Prison Service that the agreed approach, taken by the officials involved in the tender competition at that time, was that an RFT would issue for planned preventative and reactive maintenance and an indicative non exhaustive list of Plant and Equipment was provided (as per Appendix 1 appended to the RFT).
It was recognised and acknowledged that there was a large element of unknowns associated with the facilities management services to be procured (in keeping with the nature of such services) because:
- The full extent of assets that would fall to be maintained in the period of the contract could not be defined (an indicative list was provided but it was acknowledged in the tender documentation that it was not definitive).
- Part of the service procured was to include a comprehensive asset identification and verification exercise (approximately 100,000 assets have been identified over the course of that contract).
- There was an unknown and unquantifiable level of demand for the management and delivery of reactive, urgent and emergency callouts and works (this is commonplace for such facilities management contracts).
- There was an unknown and unquantifiable requirement for spares, parts and consumables associated with repair and maintenance of fabric, plant, systems and equipment.
This information was communicated to all of the contractors who competed in the tender process back in 2013/2014 and lessons learned from that process were incorporated into the tender process which was completed in 2020, as the associated RTF stated:
“The Contracting Authority estimates that the expenditure on the Services to be covered by the proposed Services Contract may amount to some €71M (excl. VAT) over the term and any possible extensions. Tenderers must understand that this figure is an estimate only, based on current and future expected usage.”
The scope of services sought from the tenderers was as follows:
- “Planned preventative maintenance covering mechanical, electrical, security, fabric, machinery and equipment assets;
- Reactive maintenance and call out service on 24/7basis;
- Provision of supplementary trade resources;
- Specialist FM services for terminal cleaning (ie) to control spread of infections and legionella control measures;
- Small projects related to the refurbishment, adaptation of buildings and replacement of elements of the IPS Estate.”
[if she will provide a schedule of contracts that were awarded following a specific procurement and tender procedure for those works and contracts in which no procurement procedure or tender was issued].
The scope of the work agreed with the Contractor since the first contract was implemented in 2015 has been significant and extensive, and has included the usual broad range of facilities management services, such as:
- the commissioning and maintenance of mechanical and electrical plant, fabric and systems
- repairs, renewals, replacements, reconfigurations and upgrades, general, reactive and planned preventative and infection control related maintenance at all IPS locations,
In addition to the provision of Facilities Management Services, a number of small works contracts were also awarded to this contractor following procurement exercises issued via the Irish Prison Service’s Small Works Framework between 2015 and 2020 as follows:
- Cloverhill High Dependency Unit - €406K
- Mountjoy West Campus Laundry - €470K
- Wheatfield Training College - €373K
- Cloverhill Windows Replacement - €408K
In 2018, the Office of Government Procurement commenced a tender process for the provision of Facilities Management Services. This process was completed in 2020 culminating in the contract being awarded on 20 July 2020. Therefore, in order to ensure continuity of the necessary service provision for the prison estate, the 2015 contract was in rollover from March 2019 to July 2020.
Over the duration of the roll-over period in 2019 and 2020, amounts of €9.3 million and €6.2 million respectively, were paid to the contractor. These payments have been recorded and reported as non-competitive for the years in question, in accordance with Government accounting procedures and also recorded on the Irish Prison Service annual 40/02 return.
