HCC - 06/22 - Pre-Procurement Market Engagement (PPME) relating to the procurement of Highways Maintenance Services and Professional Services

Concepts

• highway operation
• highways maintenance services and professional services
• hertford
• highways services term maintenance contract
• professional services term contract
• highway materials
• appointed service providers
• procurement of highways maintenance services
• similar services
• highways maintenance services

Location

Hertfordshire:

Description

Hertfordshire County Council (the Council) plans to commence two separate but related procurements in early 2023 to appoint service providers to deliver a (i) highways services term maintenance contract and (ii) professional services term contract. This notice is intended to announce the commencement of a pre-market engagement exercise relating to the Council’s appointment of the two service providers, more fully described in sections II.2.4 and VI.3. The Council wishes to facilitate the appointed service providers to identify and implement innovative solutions, establishing a new way of delivering the services to maximise the potential for success for both itself and the appointed service providers throughout the lifetime of the contracts. At present, the highways maintenance services and professional services are delivered through the Council’s existing highways services term maintenance contract and professional services term contract which are both due to expire in September 2024

Total Quantity or Scope

This notice marks the commencement of a PPME exercise to conduct a consultation with service providers with expertise in successfully delivering similar services and to obtain feedback on the Council’s proposed approach to the separate procurement exercises for the highways services term maintenance contract (HST) and professional services term contract (PSC). The current expectation is for the formal procurements to commence in early 2023. A PPME document has been produced by the Council (available via https://in-tendhost.co.uk/supplyhertfordshire/aspx/Home)) explaining the potential scope of both opportunities in further detail. The Council recognises the challenges involved in delivering both services and has reflected on these in developing its desired strategy. The Council intends to focus on the following for both opportunities: •A service delivered in line with Hertfordshire’s Sustainability Strategy, playing a key role in delivering the strategy’s ambitions both in its organisations and the behaviour it encourages. The Council wishes to work with service providers to meet its ambitious environmental targets to address the climate emergency it declared in 2019; • Manage, improve and maintain the network for all users, encouraging and enabling active and sustainable travel; • Sustain a financially resilient service that delivers best value with the resources available; • Optimise service efficiency and maximise income from commercialisation and external funding. The Council wishes for appointed service providers to raise initiatives for providing a commercially astute service; • Embrace best practice, innovations and new technologies, enabling the service to continuously evolve and improve. The Council’s ambition is to create an exciting, new approach to the delivery of highways and related services; • Attract, develop, empower and retain the best people capable of driving dynamic and agile service; • Engage effectively to understand and meet the needs of our citizens and communities; • Develop and sustain collaborative partnership that delivers the objectives of all. The Council is keen to understand how it can better facilitate collaborative working across the highways service and in its supply chain; • A sensible and fair procurement process - as a local authority, the Council is committed to complying with the public procurement regime. While it hopes that this offers assurance that you should expect a fair and transparent process, the ambition is to also undertake two procurements which are not overly burdensome and facilitate enough interaction with bidders to arrive at the right decision. The PPME document explains how the Council proposes to do this in further detail.The details of the activities which will take place for the PPME are set out in the PPME document and will consist of a combination of: (i) a questionnaire (contained within the PPME document) for each opportunity. The Council is keen to receive responses in order to help it structure any future procurement process in a way that is going to be suitable for, and attractive to, the market; (ii) Open Day for all interested parties scheduled to take place via video conference on 13 July 2022. The Council will give interested parties further information on the anticipated procurement processes and the scope of the contracts; (iii) depending on the nature and level of interest, the Council may also hold one-to-one discussions with some or all of the companies that complete and return the questionnaire(s) (scheduled to take place on 14/15 July 2022) to secure a more detailed understanding of the services to be provided. This PPME exercise will provide a platform for potential service providers to comment and feed into the procurement processes. This early engagement is aimed at producing procurement programmes that best supports service providers to create and refine their final solutions that best deliver the Council’s requirement.

CPV Codes

• 63712200 - Highway operation services
• 34929000 - Highway materials

Other Information

** PREVIEW NOTICE, please check Find a Tender for full details. ** By publication of this notice, the Council notifies interested parties that it intends to undertake certain pre-procurement market engagement (PPME) activities in respect of its requirement to appoint a service provider for each of the … We therefore invite interested parties to contact us via the Council’s eTendering system, In-Tend (www.supplyhertfordshire.uk) to request a copy of the PPME document, which sets out further detail about the requirements and the scope of the PME. Parties should note that participation in this PPME exercise, and attendance at the Open Day and/or one-to-one discussions, are not prerequisites to participating in any subsequent procurement process. The Council is committed to ensuring that all parties are treated equally, and any information shared during the PPME will be made available once any formal procurement process is initiated. The Council will consider the feedback received to help inform the Council’s options and further decision making. For the avoidance of doubt, this stage of the project is not part of a formal procurement process and the Council is not committing, at this stage, to carrying out such a process. Participation or non-participation in the PPME shall not prevent any supplier participating in a potential future procurement, nor is it intended that any information supplied as part of the PPME shall place any supplier at an advantage in a potential procurement process. Participation in the PPME will be at each organisation’s own cost. No expense in responding to this PPME will be reimbursed by the Council. Further information can be found within the attached documentation. You are invited to submit a completed questionnaire by 5pm on the 1st July 2022To participate in this PPME, organisations must submit their completed Supplier Questionnaire, together with any supporting documents, through the In-Tend system by the return deadline of 5pm on the 1st July 2022Please make sure that you have submitted your Supplier Questionnaire following the instructions above. The Council will not be held accountable for any errors made by an organisation in submitting their Supplier Questionnaire. The Council will consider the feedback received to help inform the Council’s options and further decision making. For the avoidance of doubt, this stage of the project is not part of a formal procurement process and the Council is not committing, at this stage, to carrying out such a process. Participation or non-participation in the PPME shall not prevent any supplier participating in a potential future procurement, nor is it intended that any information supplied as part of the PPME shall place any supplier at an advantage in a potential procurement process. Participation in the PPME will be at each organisation’s own cost. No expense in responding to this PPME will be reimbursed by the Council.If you are experiencing problems In-Tend offer a help section which includes a dedicated UK support desk which can be contacted via email: support@in-tend.co.uk or Telephone: +44 1144070065 for any website/technical questions, Monday to Friday, 8:30-17:00.