National Legal Services Framework – Uplift to contract value

In 2016 the MPS awarded the National Legal Services Framework (NLSF) for the provision of legal services for a term of 4 years expiring in May 2020. The purpose and scope of the contract is to ensure the MPS has an overflow facility to deal with “business as usual” legal work that cannot be dealt with internally.

The NLSF is also used for specialist projects where it would not be cost effective to dedicate MPS Directorate of Legal Service (DLS) lawyers solely to a single project and property law work which DLS does not have a specialism in.

Specialist projects are therefore covered by the scope of the NLSF but not considered as “business as usual” and are not budgeted for as part of the Legal Services revenue budget of £2.6m per annum. The spend on specialist projects since June 2016 has been allocated against the contract value, which has resulted in there being insufficient contract value remaining to cover business as usual activity for the remaining term of the contract.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Approve the increase in the contract value of the NLSF agreement by £4.16m to give a new total contract value of £15.6m by the MPS under the framework agreement.

2. To note that the additional £4.16m will be spread across the seven panel firms contracted under the NLSF

3. To note that business as usual legal work met from the requested uplift will be funded from the existing DLS revenue budget of £2.6m p.a. Any additional spend in support of Transformation Projects will be funded from approved business cases/project budgets.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. In 2016 the MPS awarded the National Legal Services Framework (NLSF) for the provision of legal services for a term of 4 years expiring in May 2020. The purpose and scope of the contract is to ensure the MPS has an overflow facility to deal with “business as usual” legal work that cannot be dealt with internally. Work typically sent out to supporting panel firms is low level work where in-house capability exists but where workflow peaks require additional external support; specialist projects where it would not be cost effective to dedicate DLS lawyers solely to a single project and property law work which DLS does not have a specialism in.

1.2. The MPS expenditure, and value of the call off contracts awarded under the framework, was forecast at a maximum of £10.4m to cover business as usual work over the 4 years.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. Whilst specialist projects are covered by the scope of the NLSF they are not considered as business as usual and were not budgeted for in the £10.4m. The spend on specialist projects since June 2016, has been allocated against the £10.4m, rather than requesting an uplift against the contract once the business case has been approved. As this has not happened there has been significant spend in relation to specialist projects which has led to insufficient value remaining to cover business as usual activity for the remaining term of the contract.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The original value of the four-year NLSF contract was £10.4m, which was subsequently increased by Commercial Services by 10% (£1.04m) in line with the Scheme of Devolved Financial Management, increasing the value of the contract to £11.44m.

3.2. Spend against the contract is currently forecast at £15.6m. Spend is higher than anticipated as the Framework has also been used for Transformation Projects, in addition to business as usual legal work. The additional spend in support of Transformation Projects is funded from approved business cases/project budgets. Legal Services is therefore not requesting additional budget to cover the requested Contract Uplift. Business as usual legal work will be funded from the existing DLS revenue budget of £2.6m per annum.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. In accordance with paragraph 4.14, DMPC 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’

4.2. Clause 72.b.ii of the 2015 Public Contract Regulations 2015 provides for value extensions of up to 50% where changing contractor would “cause significant inconvenience for the contracting authority”. The current burn rate on the contract is approximately £300k per month, therefore approval is requested to increase the contract value by the maximum permissible of £4.16m (50% of the original MPS contract value) as the only option to meet the requirement.

5. GDPR and Data Privacy

5.1. The Project does not currently use personally-identifiable data so there are no direct GDPR issues to be considered.

6. Equality Comments

6.1. There are no equality or diversity implications arising from this report.

7. Background/supporting papers

7.1. MPS report