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Wandsworth Council (202006579)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202006579

Wandsworth Council

26 February 2021


Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this. 

In deciding whether a complaint falls within their jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

  1. The complaint concerns the Council’s response to the resident’s request that it include a performance bond for tendered contracts.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, I have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

  1. In July 2019, the Council awarded a contractor with a lift servicing and maintenance contract.
  2. Upon receiving the contract award letter, which is dated 10 July 2019, the contractor company carried out a final review process. The outcome of the review found that it was unable to fulfil the agreed price as per the contract terms. It therefore withdrew its tender, by letter, which is dated 18 July 2019.
  3. The Council then tendered a new contract with another contractor, which was more expensive in percentage terms for leaseholders.
  4. In 2019, the resident submitted a complaint to the Council, stating concerns on its tendering process and consultation requirements, in respect of the lift servicing and maintenance contract.
  5. The Council provided a final response to the complaint on 13 February 2020. It explained that the risk of a contractor withdrawing their tender at the point of a contract award must be considered alongside many others in the procurement of services. It went on to say that this was an unprecedented event and that it had considered the resident’s request to include a bid bond as a requirement in future contracts; but only should the risk become a more common occurrence.
  6. The resident brought their complaint to this Service and explained that it would like to see a firm policy change which does not permit such instances to be repeated, however unlikely it might be to occur again.

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 39(f) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that:

The Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion: concern policies which have been properly decided by the member in accordance with relevant and appropriate best practice, unless the policy may give rise or contribute to a systemic service failure.

  1. The resident’s complaint turns on their belief that the Council should change its policy to ensure that all tendered contracts require a performance bond (or bid bond) which allows for it to recover costs from a contractor that withdraws its winning bid.
  2. The Council’s position is that the procurement of long-term service contracts is already a lengthy process and that it is difficult to anticipate or predict what the financial effect of requesting a performance bond may have on the contract price. In its response to the complaint, the Council set out that the complaint concerned an issue which it considered to be a one off and, therefore, it did not think it was necessary to amend its policy.
  3. This Service cannot consider a complaint about a Council’s policy unless there is evidence that its application will give rise to a systemic failure. This means that it is likely that, on balance, its application would regularly create the problem complained about by the resident. In this case, there is no evidence to show that the issue complained about is a regular occurrence, or that it could be reasonably expected to regularly occur. Therefore, this is not a complaint that the Ombudsman can investigate further.