Provision Of Veterinary Care For Operational Police Dogs

This paper is for the authority to extend the value of the current Police Dog Veterinary Contract to provide care for operational Police dogs until 31 May 2020 and to approve the initiation of a new procurement exercise for future veterinary care from 1 June 2020 for a period of up to four years.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended:

1. Approve an unforeseen extension to the value of £0.32m to ensure service continuation for the provision of Veterinary care for Police Dogs until 31 May 2020. The increased value of £0.32m will be funded from the Dogs revenue budget.

2. Approve the initiation of a new procurement exercise for Police Dog Veterinary Care from 1 June 2020 for a period of up to four years with a contract value of up to £1.2m.

1. Introduction and background

1.1 Veterinary Care for all Police dogs is currently outsourced to a single provider who were awarded a 3 year plus 1 year extention contract with a total value of £0.8m, commencing on 1st June 2017.

1.2 The contract value has been reached early ahead of time and no further value remains. This is due to:

• More complex procedures and diagnostics within the industry.

• An increasing number of dogs within the Dog Support Unit which has led to an inability to reduce the veterinary spend to match the contract value.

• In addition, the referral expenditure under the contract for specialist procedures are unpredictable because referral costs are dependent on the extent of any subsequent treatment considered necessary to be undertaken and this has added an additional budgetary pressure.

1.3 This extension and subsequent approval for initiation will allow for a new procurement exercise to be conducted with a revised requirement to target procedures and medications commonly used to achieve best value through competition.

2. Issues for Consideration

2.1 Police Dogs provide a wide range of support to frontline Policing across general purpose and specialist search disciplines. This includes searching for persons or property at the scene of a crime, dogs deployed on public order operations or protecting lives of Officers during firearms operations. Targeting serious and organised crime networks through drugs, firearms and currency detection dogs and supporting forensic recovery with cadaver, blood and semen detection dogs at scenes of violent serious sexual offences. Police dogs are deployed routinely on protective security operations searching for explosives and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) new digital media detection capability is assisting in the recovery of digital media in the fight against on-line sexual exploitation and high tech cyber-crime offences.

2.2 Police dogs are deployed to over 50,000 incidents per year and perform a unique role that cannot be done by other assets.

2.3 Part of ensuring the effectiveness of the Dog Support Unit is by ensuring that the animals are properly cared for whilst at work and at rest. The working lives of dogs are dependent on them being physically and mentally fit.

2.4 Providing sound veterinary care is not only essential in order to maintain this service it is a legal requirement for the owner (or person with temporary care) of any animal to prevent suffering or cruelty and to comply with good practice guidelines set by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

2.5 There are 320 dogs in service across the MPS which includes those in active service, puppies in training and breeding stock who supply the next generation of Police dogs for service. In 2017-2018 the MPS bred 15x litters delivering 85x new dogs for Frontline Policing.

3. Financial Comments

3.1 The MPS recently used delegated powers to increase the contract value by 10% to £880k in order to meet immediate veterniary payments. This paper seeks an additional £0.32m increase in contract value to meet further costs upto 31st May 2020, bringing the total cost over the 3 year contract period to £1.2m (from the original contract value of £800,000).

3.2 The extension will be funded from the revenue budget currently held within Taskforce who will be responsible for managing ongoing expenditure through the Dog Training Establishment.

3.3 A new procurement exercise will be initiated at the end of the initial contract term with a new revised requirement which aims to securing best value with improved governance.

3.4 The costs of a new framework from 1st June 2020 is expected to be £1.2m million for the length of the contact of 2+1+1. The contract is a framework so will be provided by a number of suppliers.

3.5 Due to a desire to have multiple providers, for both capacity and contingency considerations, it is proposed that the new procurement is for a framework agreement which will be for a period of four years.

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 of contracts for good and or services valued at £181,302 or above must be procured in accordance with the Regulations. This report confirms the estimated value of the proposed framework agreement will exceed the above threshold. Accordingly, the Regulations will be engaged.

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

4.3 The Public Contract Regulations 2015 allow extension of a contract under Article 72(1) (c) by up to 50%. This would provide a clear compliant route to extend where the increase could not have been forseen. Modification to the contract would be permitted on the basis that the MPS (as the contracting authority) could not have foreseen the increase in spend where demand has fluctuated causing an increase in expenditure prior to the contract end date.

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 project meets its compliance requirements.

5.4 The project does not use personally identifiable data of members of the public, so it is considered that it is unlikely that there will be any GDPR issues to be considered.

6. Equality Comments

6.1 The business case has undergone initial equality screening. Due regard has been taken to the Equality Act’s Public Sector Equality Duty. Real consideration has been taken to assess equality impact caused by the proposed business changes. As a result no positive or negative impact has been identified to any individual and/or group safeguarded by a protected characteristic and those who are not.

6.2 An Equality Impact Assessment was last completed in relation to the MPS Policing Guide in relation to “Dogs Coming to Police Notice” which was updated in 2016 following a change in primary and secondary legislation along with the Sentencing Guidelines. As this is an extension of an existing service this work does not change any aspects relating to equality or diversity.

7. Background/supporting papers

None.