A previous Derby News article highlighted some issues around the award of the Home to School Transport contract (for children with Special Educational Needs) to Nottingham Special Transport Ltd (NST)

Would you put your vulnerable child into an unmarked minibus? Derby City Council expects you to!

Subsequently, Derby City Council, issued a Parent Bulletin to reassure parents that NST was selected following a “compliant” process.

Derby City Council issue defensive “bulletin” on new school minibus contract.

Whilst the process may have been compliant, there are questions over whether it considered all relevant aspects of the contract to ensure that the best supplier was selected.

Selection process.

A rigid process was followed which assessed 70% of the decision based on “price”, and 30% based on “quality”.

5 suppliers quoted on the whole school contract for 5 Derby City specialist schools.

3 of the suppliers quoted significantly above NST for the 2 year contract, with 24 x 7 Ltd being just 7.7% higher (+ £0.14m). This would leave just 2 suppliers in the competition provided that there were no serious quality issues.

Quality and experience was evaluated against 8 questions; each of which was given a “weight” and a score allocated by each of the 3 Panel Members.

The 8 questions were essentially in 3 groups:

1. Knowledge and experience around transporting children with different types of Special Educational Needs.
2. Knowledge and experience around delivering a whole school contract
3. Safeguarding

The Panel of 3 evaluated NST at 75 points and 24 x 7 Ltd in the range between 50 and 54.

There is no evident strict procedure for how the points should be awarded. It is noteworthy that 2 of the questions were assessed at 4 for NST, and 2 for 24 x 7 Ltd. This would suggest that 24 x 7 Ltd had substantially less experience than NST in transporting SEN children, and on fewer whole school contracts. Generally it would suggest that 24 x 7 Ltd was more limited in resources.

Comparison of both companies

24 x 7 Ltd is a much bigger concern than NST Ltd, has considerably more experience and engaged with 50 different local authorities. Despite these qualifications the Panel Members judged that on 6 of the 8 questions 24 x 7 Ltd was 1-2 points below NST.

Outside of the written responses, there was no other basis for assessing each supplier. No reference was made to;

• their objective ability to scale up together with evidenced plans ( a simple statement was all that was required)
• depth of experience in delivering whole school contracts
• robustness of the company and available financial resources.

3 separate people awarded points to each of the suppliers resulting in 3 scores per supplier which were used to average the totals. For all suppliers there was variation in the overal scores by Panel Member, apart from NST. With NST the scoring, in total, and by question, was exactly the same.

NST were awarded 6 perfect scores (4 out of 4) from 8 questions by all 3 Panel Members; 24 x 7 received a unanimous perfect score for just 2 of the 8 questions.

The text comments by the Panel Members were generally very positive towards NST

“In this excellent response, articulating how they operate a whole school contract, giving real examples of the St. Andrew’s block contract.”

“This is an excellent response to this question. The supplier has explained, in excellent detail, what knowledge and experience they have around delivering a whole school contract.”

“A great answer, explaining the supplier’s significant experience in delivering a whole school contracts in diffferent areas of the Midlands.”

whereas with 24 x 7 , they were marked down for the style of the answer ( akin to “school homework” marking) rather than their assessing their actual capability.

“The supplier has explained what knowledge and experience they have in transporting CYP with medical needs and has made reference to specific needs. It would have been better had they provided examples to support their response.”

“Clearly experience but missed oportuntiy to elabroate on key aspects of delivering a whole school contract.”

“No mention of emergency services, in the event of an accident or how incidents are invesitagted.”

Opinion

On the basis that Derby City Council has furnished all documentation, as requested, then the basis for selecting the supplier was just price and the scoring of a template based response. There were no interviews, visits, separate analyses, or investigations.

On the face of it there is a compelling and attractive case to have 24 x 7 as the supplier with a great depth of experience, and resources, yet the process favoured the supplier who provided more detailed ( but not always relevant), yet unchallenged, written answers.

With the quoted figures being so close then a more thorough investigation would have been appropriate to ensure that the best supplier was awarded the contract, rather than the one with the absolute lowest price.

In my opinion, the assessment by the 3 Panel Members showed a strong bias in favour of NST which wasn’t supported by any objective evidence. This should be subject to truly independent audit, to understand why an inexperienced, and resource poor, supplier was awarded the contract and why all Panel Members were unusually unanimous in their perception and scoring.

In the Parent Bulletin the Council declared the process to be “transparent” which implies that the evidence is available to demonstrate the decision – that doesn’t appear to be the case.