ADD2251 Additional coding support for the draft LFS consultation

ADD2221 approved expenditure of up to £15,000 to procure external support to analyse the Draft London Food Strategy consultation responses. After a competitive procurement process Pye Tait Consulting were commissioned in May 2018 to undertake this work, including coding all consultation responses from stakeholder organisations and producing a report outlining the consultation process and the main themes emerging from the consultation.

The original budget was based on an estimate of receiving 90 responses of six pages. However, over 150 responses have been received from stakeholder organisations, many of which are over 10 pages long. The consultants gave a range of prices in their original tender, based on an assumption that the majority of responses would align to the consultation questions rather than be freeform. However, in addition to the number of responses being much higher than originally anticipated, the majority of emailed responses are freeform which has taken longer to code and analyse.

This ADD asks for approval of further expenditure of up to £7,000 for Pye Tait Consulting to complete the codebook and final report which will contribute to the final Consultation Report produced by the GLA.

The additional costs for this work will be funded from the emerging priorities budget within the Food programme 2018-19 budget, approved by MD2309.

The outputs will be:
• A codebook containing an analysis of all consultation responses received – this will allow for accurate filtering, searching and data analysis.
• A draft report including analysis of respondents and the main findings of the consultation.
• A final report including analysis of respondents and the main findings of the consultation.

These outputs will help inform the final London Food Strategy and the final Consultation Report.

The likely impact on those with protected characteristics is that the needs of these people are captured and fully considered in a more coherent way through the draft London Food Strategy. Representative and specialist organisations who understand the needs of these groups and the barriers they face in securing positive economic and social outcomes have responded to the consultation on the draft London Food Strategy.

The additional budget for the consultation response analysis will help to ensure these responses are fully considered and key issued captured.

If the budget is not approved the contractors will not be able to include all consultation responses in the codebook and subsequent analysis. This is a key risk as the Food Policy Team do not have the capacity to undertake this work.

The additional work will be carried out by the current contractors and there are no contractual or procurement issues. This has been confirmed by TfL procurement.

ADD2221 approved expenditure of up to £15,000 for coding support on the Draft London Food Strategy. As detailed within the main body of this report, the contract costs with Pye Tait Consulting have increased by £7,000, and will be funded from the Food Programme budget for 2018-19 (as approved by MD2309).