Procurement of Media Buying and Planning services

This decision seeks approval for procurement actions in relation to the media planning and buying services to support corporate initiatives and police officer recruitment advertising. The proposed actions are to award a short term contract to maintain service provision for a 12 month period at a value estimated at upto £31,000,000, and to re-procure the service for the longer term – a period of upto 4 years – at a estimated value of £35,000,000.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Approve the award of a contract to Wavemaker for a period of 12 months, extending the existing service provision from the current 4 year term to allow a new tendering process to be completed.

2. Approve an increase to the maximum value of the call off agreement from £16.5m to £31m to accommodate the business requirement for the additional 12 month service contract period.

3. Approve that DMC can initiate procurement activity via the Crown Commercial Services Framework, with a view to procure a new media planning and buying services contract, to replace the current contract when it expires. The estimated contract value over 4 years is £35million.

4. Approve that the contract award continues to be delegated to the Director of Commercial Services following completion of the tendering process on the basis that the supply category being procured is neither novel nor contentious.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. The MPS and National Counter Terrorism Police Head Quarters (NCTPHQ) currently obtain their media planning and buying services from a call off contract from a GLA-wide framework. The framework expired on 31 March 2022, and the current MPS call-off contract for the provision of this service expires on 23 April 2022. There is no further contract extensions available.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. The GLA-wide collaborative procurement during 2021 to re-procure the existing framework for these services was unsuccessful. As a result the GLA has put in place a short term replacement framework to enable the continued provision of these services.

2.2. Awarding a 12-month call off contract from this short-term framework will enable the continued provision of these services which are vital, in particular to the recruitment of police officers as part of the Police Officer Uplift Programme, as well as other police advertising campaigns.

2.3. During this 12-month period MPS propose to re-procure the media planning and buying services for a upto 4-year period via a call off from the Crown Commercial Services (CCS) framework.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The estimated contract value for the 12-month call off contract is £31,000,000. This is higher than the previous contract value and that proposed for the future contract due to the peak in demand arising from the final year of the police officer uplift recruitment.

3.2. The estimated contract value for the longer term arrangement for four years is £35,000,000.

3.3. The proposals for extending the existing arrangements and procurement of a new call-off contract does not commit the MPS to any expenditure with the supplier in any particular year. The MPS assure that funding for the spend on these contract values will be met from within existing MPS resources.

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 public contracts for goods and/or services valued at £213,477 or above shall be procured in accordance with the Regulations. This report confirms the value of the proposed contracts exceeds this threshold.

4.2. In respect of the short term arrangement the proposal is to call-off a 12 month contract from a short term temporary framework agreement set up for the members of the GLA to access in order to provide continuity of service following the procurement that did not achieve a contract award whilst procurements are conducted for the ongoing supply of services. Paragraph 4.14 of MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime reserves the right to call in any MPS proposal to award contracts for £500,000 and above. Further detail is set out in the restricted section of this report.

4.3. This report confirms the MOPAC’s route to market for the longer term arrangement would be to procure the services through existing CCS framework agreements for the required services. This procurement route will be compliant with the Regulations.

4.4. Paragraph 7.23 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Director of Commercial Services has consent for the approval of the award of all contracts, with the exception of those called in through the agreed call in procedure. Paragraph 4.13 of the Scheme provides the DMPC the right to approve the procurement strategy for all revenue and capital contracts of a total value of £500,000 or above.

5. Commercial Issues

5.1. This paper is in relation to media buying and planning services for both MPS and the National Counter Terrorism Policing Head Quarters (NCTPHQ). The existing call off contract for these services from the GLA-wide framework expires on 23 April 2022. The GLA-wide framework expired on 31 March 2022.

5.2. The GLA-wide re-procurement during 2021 was not successful. The GLA has awarded a short term temporary framework to enable the continued provision of these services across the GLA. It has been awarded on the same terms as the previous call-offs - the current supplier has, for the 12 month term, agreed to honour the original rates that they offered in 2016. The MPS propose to call-off a contract from this short term framework for a period of 12 months whilst it re-procures the services for the longer term.

5.3. The MPS propose the procurement of the longer term provision of these services from the Crown Commercial Services (CCS) framework arrangements. The planned term is for a 4 year contract with an estimated value of £35,000,000.

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 the Media Buying and Planning services for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters CTPHQ) does not use personally identifiable data of members of the public, so there are no 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. The MPS assure that there are no known negative equality or diversity implications arising from this process negating the requirement to present any mitigation. As this is an a continuation of service provision, this work does not change any aspects relating to equality or diversity.

8. Background/supporting papers

8.1. MPS Report - Procurement of Media Buying and Planning services for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters (CTPHQ).