Recreational, cultural and sporting services

Tender description

As the Capital City for Wales, Cardiff is renowned for its strong reputation for sport and physical activity. The City of Cardiff Council recognises that its Leisure Services play a fundamental part in ensuring that Cardiff residents are able to enjoy healthy and active lifestyles. The Council's current portfolio comprises a mixture of both wet and dry facilities across eight sites which provide a high quality comprehensive programme of leisure and community based activities across the city. The portfolio includes a new leisure facility in the Splott area of the city (together with a 6 505 000 000 (GBP) refurbishment of Eastern Leisure Centre). However, the Council is experiencing severe financial pressure on its non-statutory services. As a result it recognises the need to maximise the income potential from its portfolio and to minimise the need for any continuing subsidisation whilst ideally keeping the whole of its portfolio open and available for public use. The City of Cardiff Council is therefore seeking proposals for the operation, management and maintenance of those leisure, sporting and community facilities (including management, mobilisation and opening of the new/refurbished facilities mentioned) with the aim of maximising the ability to achieve a 0 subsidy within 3 years. The contracts being procured are expected to be 15 years. The Council wants to facilitate the ability for bidders to make bold investment decisions which they may consider necessary to achieve the 0 subsidy position within the first 3 years. By adopting a longer term approach it is hoped that this provides the comfort to bidders needing to be assured they have a sufficient operating term over which to recover a reasonable return on their investment. It is the intention of the Council to take a maximum of six bidders through from PQQ into Competitive Dialogue on lot 1 with that number rising to a maximum of 8 bidders for the other 3 separate lots. It is hoped that this will encourage smaller/niche operators to become involved in the procurement. Whilst bidders can bid for any 1 or more of the lots, the Council is keen to encourage bidders to bid for all lots as it recognises that efficiencies of scale may be an important factor in achieving the objectives of the procurement. A maximum of four bidders will be taken to the detailed tender stage on all lots and no more than two bidders to Final Tender on all lots. The Council reserves the right to add or remove sites throughout the procurement and during the lifetime of the contract (though mechanisms will be included in the contract to keep the contractor whole). Bidders are recommended to review the report to Cardiff's Cabinet on the leisure portfolio dated 15.5.2014. As the report makes clear, the procurement must achieve a significant improvement for the Council over the position that could be achieved by retaining the facilities in-house (which will be the default position). The Council is looking for proposals that offer long-term benefit and sustainability of each centre to the communities they serve, in addition to providing a varied programme and supporting club development and local sporting success. The Council is committed to facilitating access for everyone to high quality, safe and attractive facilities and wishes to promote increased usage of the facilities in order to increase physical activity participation rates amongst all age groups. Nevertheless a compulsory variant bid will also be required in relation to lot 1 which will be based on seeking bidders' alternative proposals for achieving the 0 subsidy position and/or maximising the financial return to the Council based on reduced tender constraints (e.g. if the tenderer did not have to manage all facilities in the lot or keep them open throughout all core hours stipulated in the contract documentation). The Council considers that this is a contract for Part B services under the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 as amended (‘the Regulations’) or a service concession contract that falls outside of the scope of the Regulations. Consequently this is a voluntary notice and the Council is not bound by many of the formalities of the Regulations and reserves the right to use such flexibilities in this procurement process. It is expected that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 as amended (‘TUPE’) will apply to the award of this contract and that staff may transfer to an incoming provider. Bidders are expected to seek independent legal advice on the application of TUPE in these arrangements. The Council reserves the right not to award the opportunity or to award only part of the opportunity described in this notice or to vary the final configuration and content of the opportunity. Welsh Language Standards will be applicable throughout the term of the contract.