National Legal Services Framework – Extension to contract term

This report outlines the proposed extension of the National Legal Services Framework contract by eight months to enable feedback to be incorporated from the current Collaborative Law Enforcement Programme consultation, following which a re-procurement exercise will take place.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

• Approve the extension of the National Legal Services Framework by eight months to 31 January 2021 to allow sufficient time to engage with all police forces in the re-procurement of the replacement National Legal Services Framework and to avoid any shorter extension period ending on Christmas/New Year.

• Note the estimated total expenditure under the current National Legal Services Framework for all eligible users was £24m and the extension will cause this figure to be exceeded. It is anticipated that the new Framework value will be no more than £33m, an increase of £9m of which the MPS spend is estimated to be no more than £5m. Any further expenditure under the Framework will be met from either existing Legal Services revenue budgets or from approved programme/ project budgets, as appropriate.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. The National Legal Services Framework (NLSF) contract was awarded in 2016, for the provision of legal services for a term of 4 years expiring on 31 May 2020.

1.2. Following a Home Office led review the legal services category is currently under review by the Collaborative Law Enforcement Programme (CLEP) to ascertain what improvements can be made nationally, from a quality, efficiency and value for money perspective, to ensure Police Forces are deriving the optimum value from their engagement with external solicitors. This engagement is ongoing and the findings will be incorporated into the renewal of the National Legal Services Framework.

1.3. As these consultations are ongoing and procuring legal services for national use is complex there is insufficient time to run a procurement exercise to have a replacement for the NLSF in place for 1 June 2020.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. To enable any benefits identified by CLEP to be incorporated into the procurement process and to liaise with other Forces to communicate these benefits an extension to the existing contract to 31 January 2021 is requested.

2.2. Greater take up of the NLSF will benefit the MPS by achieving better pricing, more opportunities for added value and more choice in the bidders. Greater use of the NLSF should also benefit policing nationally by achieving greater value for money, through consistency in charge rates; shared learning, from the perspective of firms being able to share advice between forces and efficiencies in the procurement of external legal support.

3. Financial and Commercial Comments

3.1. Contract rules allow for an increase of up to 50% of the original contract value where certain criteria are met. The contract value of the original contract contained a range of £18m – £24m. Taking a cautious approach, a 50% increase would be £9m based on the lower end of this range. This would result in a new maximum value for the Framework of £33m. The MPS spend within this contract is estimated to be no more than £5m.

3.2. The MPS spend will be met from within existing Legal Services revenue budgets or from approved programme/ project budgets, as appropriate.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. MOPAC is a contracting authority as defined in the Public Contract Regulations 2015 (the PCRs). All awards of public contracts for goods or services valued at £181,302 or more must be procured in accordance with the PCRs. This report confirms that the request exceeds the £181,302 threshold and therefore the PCRs are engaged.

4.2. Paragraph 4.13 of the Scheme provides the DMPC shall be required to approve all unforeseen extensions to contracts with an original value of £500,000 or above, when the extension is greater than 10% of the original contract value and/or is for a period of more than 12 months.

4.3. The report confirms that the value of the proposed extension shall not exceed 50%.

4.4. There is further detail about the legal implications in the restricted part of the report.

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. As this request relates to an existing service the Information Assurance and Information Rights units within MPS were consulted at all stages to ensure the compliance requirements were met.

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

6. Equality Comments

6.1. As this is an extension of an existing service this request does not change any aspects relating to equality or diversity.

7. Background/supporting papers

7.1. None.