Decision details

The Cabinet gave consideration to a report of the Principal Housing Energy Officer which sought approval for the appointment of new Warm Homes Delivery Agents following an OJEU procurement exercise.

The Cabinet was informed that, in August 2012, Oldham Council, NHS Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Oldham Housing Investment Partnership (OHIP) had signed the country’s first Joint Investment Agreement to help tackle fuel poverty in the borough. The partnership had established ‘Warm Homes Oldham’ as a brand under which fuel poverty assessments and referrals (Lot 1), income maximisation (Lot 2) and energy efficiency works (Lot 3) were delivered across the borough.

The contracts for the provision of the service were due to end and an OJEU procurement exercise had been carried out to appoint new providers under a four year framework agreement. This had been done on a 1+1+1+1 basis, which allowed the contract to be terminated at the end of each financial year if funding for the service ceased to be available.

The Cabinet noted that, due to a delay by the Government in issuing the guidance for funding under the Energy Company Obligation (ECO 3), the OJEU procurement exercise could not start until December 2018. As a result, the framework agreement could not commence until the middle of May 2019 at the earliest. Therefore, a short extension of the contracts with the current providers from 1 April 2019 to 31 May 2019 was required to maintain continuity of the service during the interim period.

Options/Alternatives considered :-

Option 1 – To appoint providers to the Warm Homes Oldham Framework Agreement as detailed in the report in the restricted part of this agenda. To engage the Rank 1 provider in each of the lots to deliver the service in Oldham from 1 June 2019. To agree a short extension of the contracts with the current providers from 1 April 2019 to 31 May 2019 to maintain continuity of the service during the interim period.

Option 2 – Not to appoint any providers to the Warm Homes Oldham Framework Agreement and discontinue the Warm Homes Oldham service. This option would not meet the need to tackle fuel poverty in the borough.

RESOLVED – That the Cabinet would consider the commercially sensitive information contained at Item 10 before making a decision.