Contract Award for Media Planning and Buying Services

This paper seeks approval for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and the National Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters (NCTPHQ) to join the procurement framework run by the Greater London Authority (GLA) for the procurement of Media Planning and Buying Services.

Media Planning and buying services are required to deliver impactful and cost effective advertising campaigns to support MPS and NCTPHQ organisational priorities, from Violent Crime and Be Safe crime prevention campaigns, to recruitment of a significant volume of new police constables. The supplier provides advice on selecting the right media channels to hit the target audience for each campaign with minimum wastage, as well as securing the best prices and buying the recommended advertising space.

The MPS will extend the current contract in order for it to expire April 2021 and then the MPS and NCTPHQ will join the GLA framework in a new contract for four years (2+1+1) with an estimated value in the range £23.4M to £33.2M over the four years. The contract does not commit MPS and NCTPHQ to any expenditure with the supplier.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Give approval for the MPS Director of Media and Communications (DMC) to initiate procurement activity as a part of the GLA Collaborative initiative, with a view to procure a new media planning and buying services contract to replace the current contract when it is due to end April 2021.

2. Give delegated approval to the MPS Director of Commercial Services to award the contract following completion of the tendering process on the basis that the supply category being procured is neither novel nor contentious.

3. Note that the contract term will be for four years (2+1+1) and the MPS value of the call off agreement from £23.4M up to a maximum of £33.2M inclusive of any extension. This range has been calculated to provide options if required in future and this spend, including the lower amount, is neither guaranteed nor committed.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. Media planning and buying services are required to deliver impactful and cost effective MPS advertising campaigns to support MPS organisational priorities, from Violent Crime and Be Safe crime prevention campaigns, to recruitment of a significant volume of new police constables. The current supplier is Wavemaker. They are managed by the Director of Media and Communications (DMC) to provide advice on selecting the right media channels to hit the target audience for each campaign with minimum wastage, as well as securing the best prices and buying the recommended advertising space. This requires negotiating with the relevant media owners, for example, outdoor sites, radio, magazine publishers, newspapers or digital networks to achieve value for money. The provider also conducts research to support audience insight and targeting, and measures success where possible on business outcomes.

1.2. Access is also provided to National Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters (NCTPHQ) for their own campaigns, as well as on an ad hoc basis more widely across the MPS.

1.3. The current GLA Collaborative contract is due to expire on 15th December 2020. The MPS awarded the Media Planning and Buying Services contract (SS3/17/51) to Wavemaker on 24th April 2018, later than other GLA functional bodies. It is currently due to expire on 23rd April 2020, with the option for two one-year extensions. The MPS intends to extend the Wavemaker contract up to April 2021 and join the new media planning and buying framework along with the other FB thereafter. This will allow for a four month handover period to enable a seamless transition to the new supplier and ensure media buying to support recruitment campaigns for new Police Officers is not disrupted.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The Wavemaker contract with the MPS is in its second year and has the option of two further 12 month extensions from April 2020. The original expiration date is April 2022, however, the MPS will only be taking up the option to extend the contract for one 12 month period form April 2020 to April 2021.

2.2. By joining the current collaborative procurement initiative being run by the GLA, the MPS can align contract dates with other GLA functional bodies and continue to leverage the collective buying power and potential savings of the GLA group.

2.3. The MPS has not undertaken its own value for money assessment of the different routes to market. We anticipate the GLA Collaborative Procurement Team (CPT) will undertake this exercise on behalf of all functional bodies, as a part of the collaborative procurement initiative.

2.4. Currently one of the MPS’s biggest organisational priorities is the recruitment of a significant number of new police constables. There is a potential risk handing over to and on boarding a new supplier in December 2020, during the uplift. This will be mitigated by managing the transition of activity and ensuring a long and thorough handover process is in place between the old and new suppliers.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. Costs will be met from existing budgets and a separate business case will be produced should expenditure need to exceed the available budget.

3.2. The contract enables the MPS to purchase advertising space in the most cost effective way by maximising the economies of scale achieved by buying space through a large media agency.

3.3. The MPS buys advertising space for both recruitment and corporate advertising campaigns. DMC is currently managing on behalf of HR one of the MPS’s biggest organisational priorities for the next four years which is the attraction of a significant number of new police constables, in line with the Government’s recent announcement to recruit 20,000 officers nationally. To achieve the uplift there is a significant reliance on effective and efficient media buying and planning, to ensure the campaign attracts a sufficient numbers of applicants, to meet the requirements of the workforce plan. The new media planning and buying supplier will be a fundamental partner in achieving a successful outcome to this aim.

3.4. The MPS also provides access to the contract more widely across the MPS, and to CTPHQ. Whilst DMC manage the attraction of police officer roles on behalf of HR, the attraction of police staff roles is currently outsourced to SSCL, who have contracted their own media planning and buying supplier to handle this work. The MPS would like the option of accessing the new media planning and buying contract for this purpose, should the need arise.

3.5. The anticipated value of the new contract is £23.4M to £33.2M over four years, or approx. £5.85M to £8.3M per year. This range provides flexibility to meet the MPS’s minimum forecast spend for corporate campaigns, PC recruitment and CTPHQ requirements, as well as scope for any additional potential spend that may be required on behalf of HR and options to access this contract for any police staff attraction media activity currently undertaken by SSCL should this be required.

3.6. The CPT have started a procurement process to implement a new media buying and planning contract under the GLA joint procurement initiative. The MPS is involved in determining the scope and tendering of the framework and it is anticipated that the CPT will explore all potential routes to market including existing framework agreements and via OJEU. The new supplier will need to be in place when the contract expires in December 2020 (for TFL and the FB). This will provide the MPS with a compliant and viable route to market for all of our media requirements.

3.7. The MPS intends to join the new media planning and buying framework in April 2021. However, the decision to join the contract on this date, or extend the existing Wavemaker contract, will depend on the value remaining on the contract at that time and an assessment of the risk of moving the marketing of police constables to a new supplier during the uplift.

3.8. The current MPS revenue budget provision over four years for media planning and buying services is £16.0 m. This is spread across the following directorates over four years:

a. Directorate of Media and Communication (DMC) £6.0M.

b. Human Resources (HR) £8.8M.

c. National Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters (NCTPHQ) £1.2M

3.9. The proposal is a call-off contract with a maximum value of £33.2M over 4 years which does not commit the MPS to any expenditure with the supplier in any particular year.

3.10. The base range of the figure includes Police Constables (PC) and Detective Constables (DC) recruitment marketing whereas the top end of the range includes Metropolitan Police Specials Constabulary, police staff recruitment, transferees and bespoke campaigns for PC. The base range of the figure includes PC and DC recruitment marketing whereas the top end of the range includes Metropolitan Police Specials Constabulary, police staff recruitment, transferees and bespoke campaigns for PC.

3.11. Should the actual expenditure required exceed the budget a business case will be required from the relevant business directorate highlighting requirements and the funding source.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. The provision of approval to initiate procurement activity is a MOPAC Governance decision and does not, at this stage, commit the MPS to any binding contractual arrangements. This proposal for the MPS to join the collaborative procurement initiative being run by the GLA supports the GLA strategy to collaborate on common back office commoditised items, predominantly across the Corporate Services category areas. This paper requests that, following a competitive tendering process authority to award the contract is delegated to the Director of Commercial Services which is within MOPAC’s authority to delegate.

4.2. Paragraph 4.13 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve all requests to go out to tender for contracts of £500,000 or above.

5. GDPR and Data Privacy

5.1. The MPS is subject to the requirements and conditions placed on it as a 'State' body to comply with the European Convention of Human Rights and the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018. Both legislative requirements place an obligation on the MPS to process personal data fairly and lawfully in order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of individuals.

5.2. Under Article 35 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Section 57 of the DPA 2018, Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) become mandatory for organisations with technologies and processes that are likely to result in a high risk to the rights of the data subjects.

5.3. The Information Assurance and Information Rights units within MPS will be consulted at all stages to ensure the proposal meets its compliance requirements.

5.4. The proposal does not use personally identifiable data of members of the public, so there are no GDPR issues to be considered.

6. Equality Comments

6.1. Equality and Diversity impact has been considered with no issues identified or foreseen.