Procurement of Green Waste Vehicles

As part of the Environment Act 2021 the UK Government identified the mandatory introduction of Food Waste collection with the promise of funding to implement the changes. Due to: 1)delays regarding the funding and the value being below what was required (including subsequent rounds of challenge) 2) the national demand increase for vehicles Melton has identified that it cannot now obtain build slots in the open market for vehicles that would guarantee it to meet is legal responsibilities on the Government timelines.

Melton BC have taken the decision to procure 5 waste trucks and have made enquiries to suppliers thorugh ESPO framework 215_24 the Specialist Vehicles (Outright Purchase) (2024) framework, lot 1.3 and while costs were acceptable, no suppliers who responded were able to deliver vehicles ahead of the -1/-4/26 deadline. Biffa, the current provider for Waste collection for Melton BC, have identified in contract discussions that they, due to changes in client order quantities, have earlier build slots available they would like to make available to us.

The current contract with Biffa does not include the purchase of vehicles and the variation of this would be considered a material change. As such Melton BC propose to direct award the purchase of these vehicles to Biffa, for market costs, for Biffa to in turn purchase these vehicles from the supplier identified as best value in the mini competition already carried out under the Framework above. The vehicles would then be leased back to Biffa as if Melton BC had purchased these directly The purchase with Biffa is entirely proprietary on the Build slots Biffa already has secured, the urgency under which the authroity is buying is in order to meet legal requirements which it would not otherwise now be able to do, and is deemed out of the councils control in terms of government funding not being sufficient to enable the council to procure these any earlier.