Refuse and waste related services

Tender description

Somerset Waste Partnership, through its administering Authority (Somerset County Council) seeks a service provider to carry out the collection of recycling and residual waste for the whole county of Somerset. The contract will cover the collection from households of: the collection of dry recycling materials (from boxes or similar) and food waste; garden waste; residual waste (predominantly in 180 litre wheeled bins) currently collected fortnightly; bulky items and clinical waste. The contract will include a phased transition to a service model involving the collection of an enhanced range of recyclable materials, and three (3) weekly collection of residual waste. The service provider will help drive reduced residual waste and increased recycling and implement improvements to service quality, support behavioural change and deliver social value. It will include the statutory collection of commercial waste and may include collection from schools as a provisional item. The procurement process to be adopted will be the competitive dialogue process consisting of a Pre-Qualification Stage (PQQ) using a Selection Questionnaire (SQ), ISDS (invitation to submit detailed solutions) and ISFT (invitation to submit final tenders) stages with no ISOS (invitation to submit outline solutions) stage. There will be down-selection at the SQ stage but no down-selection at the ISDS stage — though all tenders will be evaluated and scores will be provided to Tenderers at this stage. Dialogue will precede both the ISDS and ISFT stages. Variants are permitted but only at the ISDS stage, and on a limited basis. Variants may be submitted only where a tender which is not a Variant has also been submitted and where a variant meets the Authority’s minimum requirements. Details provided within the Variant Bid shall be used by the Authority to determine the full acceptability and attractiveness of the elements of the Variant Bids for inclusion in the ISFT stage. Variants must be submitted as complete submissions and will be evaluated using the same criteria as Compliant Bids. The initial contract length will be ten (10) years. Extensions of one-year (1) periods (or multiples of one year as determined between the parties) will be available up to a maximum of a further ten (10) years (i.e. a maximum contract duration of twenty (20) years). Over the duration of the contract it is anticipated that the contract maybe adjusted or changed to account for factors including but not limited to — property growth and the introduction of producer responsibility measures that significantly change household waste composition. There is a maximum timescale for transition to Recycle More from the current service model of two (2) years from the service commencement date with the transition of specified amounts of households within specified periods of time from the second contract quarter onwards with deductions for failure to meet this requirement. The Authority does not bind itself to accept the lowest or any bid, and reserves the right to accept a bid either in whole or in part, or such item or items specified in the competition documents, and for such place or places of delivery as it thinks fit, each item and establishment being for this purpose considered as bid for separately, or to make no award at all. Additionally, Applicants should note that the partner authorities have signed up to the procurement of services with a move to a different service delivery model based on a budgetary outcome both for the first few years of the contract and an expectation of the financial performance resulting from the transition. Achieving these anticipated budgetary savings will form an important part of the decision on whether to award the contract or not. There will be a requirement for suppliers to propose the financing of assets necessary for the delivery of the services, although the Authority reserves the right to finance and own the assets itself, where it is demonstrably economically advantageous to do so. The Authority will evaluate the change in prices where Authority financing of assets is provided which could lead to the adjustment of the supplier’s prices for evaluation purposes. Any additional new resources, containers and equipment necessary for variants on the provision of the recycling service over and above those that would be required for the Compliant Bid are to be provided by the supplier and will need to be included in the Tenderer’s pricing for that Variant Bid which is to be submitted in accordance with the procurement instructions. Where the Authority does finance the assets there will be a corresponding deduction from the Service Payment.