Agenda, decisions and minutes

The agenda and reports associated with this minute can be found here.

Please note that if any changes are made to this minute at the point of approval, these will be outlined in the subsequent minute and this document will not be retrospectively altered.

The Convener proposed that the Committee consider Item 11.1 (Workplans and Business Cases – Exempt Appendices) with the press and public excluded.

The Committee resolved:-

in terms of Section 50(A)(4) of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, to exclude the press and public from the meeting during consideration of item 11.1 on the agenda so as to avoid disclosure of exempt information of the class described in paragraph 8 of Schedule 7(A) of the Act.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Committee had before it the minute of its previous meeting of 8 December 2021 for approval.

The Committee resolved:-

to approve the minute as a correct record

The Committee had before it the committee business planner as prepared by the Chief Officer – Governance.

The Committee resolved:-

to note the planner.

The Committee had before it a report by the Director of Customer Services which presented the status of key performance measures relating to the Commercial and Procurement cluster.

The report recommended:-

that Committee note the report and provide comments and observations on the performance information contained in the report appendix.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)          in relation to the query around capturing data for contracts under the £50,000 threshold, (a) to note that this was not currently collated, but that work was being undertaken on a national level in relation to consistency of data being collected across the procurement sector, and that locally, officers would review the documentation for contracts below the £50,000 threshold to review what was included in respect of suppliers addressing climate changes; and (b) to request that officers advise Members by way of service update of any changes made to the documentation; and

(ii)         to otherwise note the report.

The Committee had before it a report by the Director of Commissioning which presented the Scotland Excel Annual Report for period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 in accordance with Strategic Commissioning Committee terms of reference, to provide assurance on value achieved through the membership agreement.

The report recommended:-

that the Committee note the Scotland Excel Annual Report as set out in Appendix A.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)       to note that officers would provide feedback to Scotland Excel that it would be helpful if future reports referred to either the living wage or the real living wage, rather than both being used in the same document;

(ii)       in relation to (i) above, to note that Aberdeen City Council was committed to the real living wage through the Local Outcome Improvement Plan, and that officers would provide information to Members outwith the meeting in relation to this;

(iii)      to note that officers would ask Scotland Excel if it was possible to include some form of benchmarking in future infographics (pages 30-31 of the report) to allow comparison as to how Aberdeen was performing compared to the rest of Scotland;

(iv)      to note that only 57% of suppliers based in Aberdeen who were on Scotland Excel frameworks were either Living Wage accredited, committed to gaining accreditation or paid the Real Living Wage, and that officers would ascertain whether Scotland Excel had additional detail available to explain the figure; and

(v)      to otherwise note the report.

The Committee had before it a report by the Director of Commissioning which presented procurement workplans where expenditure was included for the Customer, Operations and Resources Functions and sought approval of the total estimated expenditure for the proposed contracts as contained in the Procurement Business Cases appended to the report, as contained at item 11.1 of the agenda.

The list of procurement business cases was as follows:-

The report recommended:-

that the Committee –

(a)      note the workplans as detailed in the appendices;

(b)      approve the procurement business cases, including the total estimated expenditure for the proposed contracts; and

(c)      to note the content of Appendix 3 –Summary of 4.1.3 Forms (Technical

Exemption).

The Committee resolved:-

(i)       to note that officers were working with services on the production of workplans for the year ahead, to emphasise the importance of forward planning;

(ii)       to note that officers would review future business cases to ensure the use of the term real living wage was consistent throughout, in line with the earlier discussion on the Scotland Excel annual report; and

(iii)      to approve the recommendations.

In accordance with the decision taken under article 1 above, the following item was considered with the press and public excluded.

The Committee had before it exempt appendices relating to the Workplans and Business Cases Revenue report on the agenda (article 7 of this minute refers).

The Committee resolved:-

to note the exempt appendices.

The Convener noted that it was the last meeting of the Committee prior to the local government elections in May and therefore stated that he wished to thank Members for their contributions during his time as Convener and to thank Councillor Grant as Vice Convener for his support.  He added that he would also like to thank the Director of Commissioning and the Committee Clerk for their support during his time in the Chair.