800/2019 Contract for the Provision of Vehicles for Community Equipment Service

Croydon Council wishes to lease 28 vehicles for the Community Equipment Service (CES). CES are a Croydon based facility helping Croydon residents for over 30 years, providing wheelchairs and community equipment to the residents of Croydon and providing 24-hour repairs to residents homes for wheelchairs and community equipment. This tender was an open procurement process for the provision of 28 vehicles for the Croydon Equipment Service. The Community Equipment Service (CES) provides a vital service to residents, enabling them to maintain their independence at home. Through commercial partnerships with other local authorities and NHS bodies we enable over 100 000 deliveries a year of essential pieces of health and social care related equipment. As part of the delivery of the service, CES currently use a fleet of 25 vehicles (seven owned and 18 on a short lease). With the growth of the service and the continued demand on the logistics, it has become imperative to renew the fleet. CES are looking to lease 28 new vehicles. Renewing the fleet will allow CES to: — meet the emission targets of the Council and improve local air quality, — have a branded fleet that will increase awareness of the service and potentially results in new contracts, — achieve savings by moving from a short term lease arrangement to a long term lease (GBP 44 000 over a 5 years period), — move to a procurement compliant arrangement where the supplier is sourced through a tender in accordance with Public Contracts Regulations (PCR), — meet CECOPS (Community Equipment Code of Practice) standards, — operate a more reliable fleet of vehicles that will reduce the amount of breakdowns and disruption to the service, — increase the number of vehicles to meet the growing demand on the service. The plan is to initially renew the fleet with Euro-6 compliant low emissions vehicles and to then progressively move to electric or hybrid vehicles. The pace of change will be dictated by the charging point’s network availability across our area of operations and the technological advancement in the automotive industry. The service will be working to make this transition as quickly as it is able to. CES has set its sights on becoming the first service of the council with an entirely hybrid/electric fleet. This will be marking a shift away from internal combustion engine to zero emission vehicles. There will be an expectation for any potential supplier to manage the servicing and maintenance of the fleet, ensuring there is minimal downtime and no disruption to the CES’ operations. The current procurement exercise will also take into consideration the residual value from the disposal of the owned vehicles via auction facilitated by the Council’s Independent Travel Team. The remaining vehicles currently used by CES will be returned to the current provider as they are on a short term lease.