Catering Contract Extension

This decision seeks approval for the extension of the current catering contract for a period of six months at a value of upto £1,492,000. The services provided under the contract are detainee feeding, operational feeding for officers on significant events, and catering services in a number of police buildings. The extension provides further time to assess the catering market and changes to the occupancy of buildings and footfall at catering facilities following the pandemic.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to approve to extend the current catering contract with Elior for six months from 01 April 2022 until 30 September 2022 with a total value uplift of £1,492,000 for the 6 month period.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. The current contract was awarded with effect from April 2017, and extended for 2 years until April 2022. The contract covers the provision of detainee feeding, operational feeding for officers at significant events, and catering at police buildings.

1.2. This extension is sought to provide additional time to assess the uncertainty in the catering market and the impact that Covid has had on occupancy at police buildings and the footfall and usage at the catering services.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. There is a legislative requirement to continue to provide meals to detainees, and an operational requirement to support public order policing with catering for planned and unplanned events.

2.2. A six month extension of the current contract with amendments to the catering offer in police buildings is recommended in order to provide the time to procure the longer term provision of this service with a more robust market and greater certainty as to demand.

2.3. If the contract is not extended or a new contract tendered, then contractually all existing catering staff would revert to the MPS in April 2022.

2.4. The proposal includes a programme of redundancy of Elioir staff at cost to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). Further information is contained in the restricted section of the report.

2.5. The Metropolitan Police Federation and staff unions have been updated on the proposals and are supportive of the recommendations.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The estimated cost of the six month extension for the period from April 2022 to September 2022 is £1,492,000 which can be met from within existing Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) budgets.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (“MOPAC”) is a contracting authority as defined in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (“the Regulations”). All awards of, and modifications to, public contracts for goods and/or services valued at £189,330 or above shall be procured in accordance with the Regulations. This report confirms the value of the proposed contract exceeds this threshold.

4.2. The Met assure that the proposed extension is allowable under the Public Contracts Regulations.

4.3. Under paragraph 4.13 of the Scheme of Delegation and Consent the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime has delegated authority “To approve all unforeseen variations and extensions to contracts with an original value of £500,000 or above, when the variation or extension is greater than 10% of the original value and/or is for a period of more than 12 months”

4.4. Further information is contained in the restricted section of the report.

5. Commercial Issues

5.1. This service provides catering for detainees, feeding of police officers during significant planned and unplanned operational events, and the catering facilities at a number of police buildings.

5.2. The previously approved contract which is the basis for this extension required that the London Living Wage (LLW) will continue to be paid to all catering staff working on MPS sites.

5.3. Further information is contained in the restricted section of the report.

6. GDPR and Data Privacy

6.1. MOPAC will adhere to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and ensure that any organisations who are commissioned to do work with or on behalf of MOPAC are fully compliant with the policy and understand their GDPR responsibilities.

6.2. The MPS assure that this proposal does not use personally identifiable data of members of the public, so there are no current GDPR issues to be considered.

7. Equality Comments

7.1. MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

7.2. MPS assure that having undertaken an equality screening exercise that no positive or negative impact has been identified to any individual and/or group safeguarded by a protected characteristic and those who are not.

8. Background/supporting papers

• Appendix 1 MPS report MPS – Elior Contract Extension 1st April – 30th September 2022