Issue - meetings

Brent entered into an eight year contract on 1 April 2013 to provide a range of highway services, including reactive maintenance works, through the London Highways Alliance Contract (LoHAC). The appointed contractor is Conway Aecom. Bringing the inspection regime in-house and paying for the services through the Schedule of Rates, rather than Lump Sum will provide officers with more control to choose where and when repairs are ordered and enables a more responsive approach to dealing with members’ reports and ordering multiple repairs within a specified area. The overall budget for this work will remain the same. This report outlines the negotiations to date and proposed way forward to deliver reactive highway maintenance. 

RESOLVED:

23.1 The ’in principle’ negotiated agreement for a variation of the existing Lump Sum as set out in section 4 of the Cabinet report be approved; and

23.2 Powers be delegated to the Strategic Director, Regeneration and Environment, in consultation with the Lead Member for Environment, to finalise negotiations, on agreement, on the terms for the Deed of Variation.

Councillor Eleanor Southwood, Cabinet Member for Environment, reminded Cabinet that Brent had entered into an eight-year contract on 1 April 2013 to provide a range of highway services, including reactive maintenance works, through the London Highways Alliance Contract (LoHAC). Councillor Southwood thanked the appointed contractor, Conway Aecom, for their work and noted that current arrangement had an inherent source of tension related to classification of defects and the subsequent covering of repair costs. In a nutshell, defects classes as High priority were included in the Lump Sum, while the cost for repairing Medium priority defects had to be covered by the Council, leading to disagreements over categorisation of defects. Councillor Southwood said that bringing the inspection regime in-house and paying for the services through the Schedule of Rates, rather than Lump Sum would provide officers with more control to choose where and when repairs were ordered and would enable a more responsive approach to dealing with members’ reports and ordering multiple repairs within a specified area. She noted that the overall budget for this work would remain the same, with officers exploring innovative ways of addressing potholes though Brent’s planned maintenance programme.

RESOLVED that:

23.1    The ’in principle’ negotiated agreement for a variation of the existing Lump Sum as set out in section 4 of the Cabinet report be approved; and

23.2    Powers be delegated to the Strategic Director, Regeneration and Environment, in consultation with the Lead Member for Environment, to finalise negotiations, on agreement, on the terms for the Deed of Variation.