Southwark Repairs Crisis: Concern Works Being Carried Out With No Legal Basis
At Southwark’s Overview and Scrutiny Meeting (4th November), council bosses were grilled on repairs procurement practices following the decision to use an intermediary platform to contract out repairs work.
However, whilst the item was intended to scrutinise the decision to use this platform – which the Unions, Labour, and Liberal Democrat councillors all united to express concern about value for money and risk – a far more troubling fact was uncovered.
Questioning the need to use this new procurement service, Cllr Irina Von Wiese asked Council Officers about the current set up for procuring repairs jobs that cannot be done by in-house teams due to either capacity or skill reasons.
The director of housing responded by saying that though contracts had existed, many contractors were undertaking work “out of contract”, as the initial contracts had expired. When pushed further by Cllr Von Wiese, who asked on what legal basis the works are carried out if there is no contract, the director responded that the contractors were doing the works “because that is the type of work they do”
The director then explained that this arrangement led to the council having no visibility of the works further down the supply chain, and was not tenable to continue due to this lack of visibility and inherent risk for the council, and described it as “legally an issue”.
Cllr Sarah King, the Labour Cabinet Member for Housing, referred to this arrangement as a “crisis”, and was the reason for seeking out alternative methods of procurement such as Plentific, in order to bring these works back into compliance.
Commenting, Liberal Democrat Vice Chair of OSC Cllr Irina Von Wiese said:
“It is genuinely shocking that the council has found itself in a situation where repairs are being carried out in Southwark homes where there is technically no legal basis. It is little wonder that residents find it hard to complain if the Council itself has no visibility of who carries out work on their behalf. To move towards using a new, potentially risky system is one thing. To let contracts fall out of legal frameworks altogether necessitating that is quite another.”