Archived decisions

Hampshire County Council

Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel Item

1 June 2005

Miscellaneous Approvals

Report by the Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services

 

How the conclusion in this report fits with the Corporate Strategy

The proposals in this report will impact on the delivery of the following Corporate Aims

Aim 2 - stewardship of the environment - by ensuring that buildings meet agreed sustainability standards

Aim 5 - improving services - by providing well maintained buildings that enable improved service delivery

  

1

Summary

   

1.1

This report seeks approval to a range of issues associated with:

    · Revisions to the New Deals for Schools (NDS) Condition programme 2004/5 and 2005/6

    · Procurement arrangements for the Staff Room extension at Mountbatten School

    · The implementation of an integrated land and buildings IT system.

    · Securing approval to use unsupported funding under the prudential code to enable the Romsey Library extension to progress.

   

2.

New Deals for Schools Condition programme 2004/5

   

2.1

The NDS Condition programmes for 2004/5 and 2005/6 were considered by BLPP and approved by the Leader on 8 April 2004 and 14 April 2005 respectively. Since the original programmes were approved the timing, content, and costs of a number of schemes have been reviewed and revised. The schemes mentioned below have all previously been approved by the Panel based on a budget as opposed to cost estimates for the work. In all cases the detailed design and development has increased the scope of the work, and hence its cost. The following changes are now proposed to the respective programmes. (Note the NDS programme 2004/5 runs from 1 April 2004 to 31 August 2005):

    · Mountbatten School, Romsey - SCOLA recladding, increase allocation to £600,000

    · Wavell School, Farnborough - Fire Alarm installation, increase allocation to £183,000

    · Petersfield School - Fire Alarm installation, increase allocation to £114,000

    · Yateley School - Fire Alarm installation, increase allocation to £185,000

   

2.2

The above increases, which equate to £367,000 will be met through under expenditure on 2004/5 programme and reallocating use of the contingency in 2005/6.

   

3.

Mountbatten School, Romsey

   

3.1

BLPP considered at is last meeting on 5 April the design project appraisal for the Staff Room Extension at the above school, which the Leader approved at his decision day meeting on 14 April 2005. It is now proposed to negotiate this scheme (value £448,000) with Brymor Contractors who are also undertaking a major SCOLA recladding project at the site following a competitive tender process. The scheme includes both NDS Condition Fund and SEED Challenge funding which has to be expended by 31 August 2005.

   

3.2

The project will benefit from the joint management arrangements and it will be possible to have a single centre of operations on site to run both projects and better control of access arrangements for the works from a health and safety perspective. The work will be procured through Brymor through an `open book' tendering process. This will ensure a speedier tender and mobilisation period and that the intended expenditure profile is achieved. Cabinet on 27 September 2004 agreed the `Hampshire Procurement Model' for the development of best value procurement over the next two years. The use of preferred contractors in this manner is a continuation of development work, which will culminate in framework arrangements suitable for small to medium sized contractors.

   

4.

Integrated Land and Buildings Information System

   

4.1

Following the report to BLPP at its last meeting on 5 April 2005 further work has been completed to scope and identify costs associated with implementing an integrated land and buildings information system. This proposal represents the second phase of the planned replacement of the department's core property systems. The first phase, (PREMIS) to replace the procurement system was successfully implemented earlier this year.

   

4.2

The implementation of this new system will provide a more robust and comprehensive system that holds information on the 4,800 buildings in the County Council's built estate, and the acquisition, management, valuation and disposal of the Council's property interests and investment decisions, which have a value exceeding £2.5bn.

   

4.3

Further details on the benefits of the system can be found in Appendix 1.

   

4.4

Financial Implications

   

4.4.1

The estimated cost of providing the new systems and infrastructure is upto £500,000. The Council spends in excess of £100m per annum on its estate and generates significant capital receipts from its reinvestment and disposal programmes. There will be several ways in which the expenditure could be funded. It is not necessary to deal with the financial decision at this meeting but to get approval for further detailed planning work.

   

5.

Romsey Library

   

5.1

The Panel considered the project plan for the extension and refurbishment of Romsey Library at its meeting on 3 February 2003. The proposals along with agreement to use the capital receipt from the sale of adjoining County Council land was approved by the Executive Member for Policy and Resources on 13 February 2003.

   

5.2

It is intended to form a contract and begin work on site in the summer but the sale of the land is not likely to be agreed until May 2006. The current estimated value of the site is around £500,000. Approval is therefore sought to use unsupported borrowing under the prudential code in accordance with the Council's policy for prudential borrowing until the disposal is complete. The would enable the contract to be formed and work commence on site during July/August.

Recommendation(s)

   
 

That the Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel advises the Executive Member for Policy and Resources that approval be given to:

   
 

1. The additional NDS allocations as detailed in paragraph 2.1.

   
 

2. The procurement arrangements with Brymor Construction for the Staff Extension at Mountbatten School

   
 

3. The planning, design and implementation of an integrated land and buildings information system as detailed in Appendix 1.

   
 

4. Securing approval for the use of unsupported borrowing of up to £500,000 under the prudential code to enable the Romsey Library project to proceed.

    Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

    The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.`

    NB the list excludes:

    1 Published works

    2 Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act

    ........................

    ........................

     

    Ref/Initials/25-May-05

    Appendix 1

    Property Systems Update

    1. Integrated Land and Buildings Information System

    1.1 Further to the report given at the BL&PP meeting of 5 April 2005, a project initiation document has now been prepared setting out the scope and indicative cost of implementing an integrated land and buildings information system.

    1.2 Given the scale of operations within Property Services it is clear a more robust and comprehensive system is needed to integrate and hold information about:

      · the built estate of some 4,800 buildings (ranging from historic buildings to modern schools, libraries, social services buildings and office accommodation) with a total floor area of 1,340,000 square metres;

      · the acquisition, management, valuation and disposal of the County Council`s property interests and investment decisions having a value exceeding £2.5bn.

1.3 The improvements to be derived from the system will include:

      · the development and use of a corporate system to improve direct access to information for staff and managers through a single integrated source and eliminate current necessary data duplication;

      · the ability to meet e-Government aims of providing external web based access to information about buildings maintenance by customers (e.g. head teachers) and partners; and to information about County Council land ownership by the public and other organisations;

      · the ability to tailor the system to meet the department's needs including wider functionality, better data retrieval, more flexible reporting, links to other electronic information about land and buildings, e.g. GIS mapping, CAD drawings, photographs and other documents;

      · integration with existing SAP based systems including construction procurement information (PREMIS), Asset Register, and Energy Management information.

    2. Cost and benefits

    2.1 It is estimated the cost of this project will be up to £500,000. Approximately 30% of the cost is for external consultancy and the remainder is for IT Services charges.

    2.2 It would be artificial to attempt to put a figure on the potential for savings as a result of this project. The main benefits are likely to be non-cashable as can be seen from the improvements given under 1.3 above. The new system will undoubtedly lead to more effective and efficient working practices saving time in trying to collate information from the many different current sources. The project will provide opportunity for reviewing existing processes and making improvements to how things are done as well as to the way in which information is captured and used.

    3. Implications of not going ahead

    3.1 As previously reported, the two core property systems `County Buildings Records' (CBR) and `Estates Property Information System' (EPIS) were originally developed separately some 15 years ago and brought within PB&R in 1997 when the former Architects and Estates departments merged. Due to their overly complex structures which cannot be easily updated, they continued to be maintained as separate databases with significant data duplication and overlap.

    3.2 Because of the need to meet the 31 March 2005 deadline for the closure of the mainframe computer, these systems were replaced in February 2005 by two basic interim systems. The cost of the interim systems has been kept to a minimum because of the impending SAP project. If the SAP project does not go ahead, up to an estimated £200,000 will still be needed to bring the interim systems back to the previous level of functionality (i.e. to the level of the previous CBR and EPIS).

    3.3 In having to continue with these two complex and separate core systems, and the range of other smaller support systems, it would not be possible to realize the improvements and benefits set out above. Experience with other projects where attempts have been made to interface non-SAP systems with SAP functionality have proved unsuccessful and if it can be achieved would be costly to maintain as SAP releases are updated in the future.

    3.4 Part of the scope of the proposed project is to review and improve the Energy Management information currently maintained within SAP. This work, cost around £80,000 within the project, will still be required if the project does not proceed.