Agenda item

Report DRR17/046

The Committee considered a report providing information on the performance of the Total Facilities Management (TFM) Contract provided by Amey Community Limited and their sub-contractor Cushman and Wakefield for the period 1^st October 2016 to 31 August 2017. A letter from the Amey Account Manager provided his update on each of the individual performance elements of the contract and was attached at Appendix 1 to the report.

Darren Nolan and Andy Voase of Amey, and Mark Alder of Cushman and Wakefield, attended the meeting to respond to questions. The view from Amey was that, despite some initial problems, the contract was going well, with strong governance arrangements in place and a good relationship with the client team. Of the four main elements of the contract – hard and soft facilities management, projects and strategic property, they considered that soft facilities management (cleaning, security, porterage, printing and associated activities) was where they the weakest performance. 

The Chairman commented that there were numerous lights out in the committee rooms – he had not reported these to see how long it would take for the bulbs to be replaced. He considered that Amey should be more proactive on this sort of activity, and stated that the good performance set out in the report did not reflect what he actually saw. Amey commented that this was reactive maintenance, driven by what was reported by Council staff, and they had no capacity under the contract to look for problems. Another Member commented that Amey staff should be reporting faults as they went about their work. The specification had been inherited from the in-house service, and required lights to be replaced within five working days of being reported, although in practice the work would be done much more quickly. A Member commented that maintenance requests had appeared to spike in May. Amey were not aware of a particular reason for this, although reports about heating did tend to increase in May and September.

A Member commented on what he had heard was excessive bureaucracy – requisitions being required for ordinary tasks. Amey clarified that, with certain exceptions such as printing, all requests were handled through a helpdesk which accepted requests by phone or email. All requests were logged and tracked. The Chairman commented that he had been told that new keys now had to be cut in Islington, rather than by a small local supplier. It was explained that Amey had an arrangement for bulk key cutting there. 

Members commented on the KPI’s and requested to know what a score of 14/17 might actually represent. The Committee was not satisfied with the data provided in the report and did not consider that it gave them the information that they needed to assess how well the contractor was performing. Amey commented that there had been problems with cases not being closed down on the system even when the task had been finished – a series of workshops had been held to address this.

A Member asked about the three month delay in commencing the Cushman and Wakefield contract, and why fire risk assessments had been added to the contract at a late stage. The delay had concerned pension arrangements for the staff transferring to Cushman and Wakefield. Fire risk assessments had not been part of the responsibilities of the Property Division but of the Health and Safety Team, so had not been part of the original service being transferred. The overall cost to the Council had not changed. 171 properties needed to be assessed; early indications were that no high or immediate risks had been identified and a report identifying costs would be presented to the client team soon.

Amey also supplied services to LB Bexley, but they confirmed that the existing framework was now closed and they were not actively seeking further Council work in south east London. If they were to win more work this should not have a detrimental impact on the contract with Bromley – on the contrary there would be greater resilience and more opportunities for cooperation. It was clarified that the reference in Amey’s covering letter to Education projects was to the existing programme of capital works to schools.

The Committee concluded that they were not satisfied with this first monitoring report, and wanted to see more detailed, better presented reports in future, giving a clear indication of the specifications and providing data in terms of activity levels and not just percentages.

Action Point 8: Presentation of performance monitoring to be improved for future reports. (Action by Head of Asset and Investment Management)

RESOLVED that the report be noted, but the Committee is concerned that the next monitoring report should include better presentation of KPI performance.