council contracts, are they legal?

[flatyre]

Basically my local council demands that in order to be eligible to tender for council tree work you must have the full arsenal of equipment including a timber lorry. A firm recently turned up to reduce some council trees close to my house, no need for anything other than a saw and a chipper, certainly no sign of a logging lorry. Surely its about what you bring to the job, not what's sitting in your yard, and does it really matter if you own or rent the equipment. Does this sort of policy:confused1: discriminate against smaller companies, thus increasing the chasm between the big and smaller firms, giving the big firms the monopoly on council work?

[Luckyeleven]

I think its basically because so many companies want council contracts they can afford to be picky

[stihlmadasever]

Some local authorities-not all-have a policy of only allowing companies who meet a certain criteria tender for contracts.

I would add ive never heard of any council stipulating what equipment you have as a factor in this.

It all sounds very strange too me as i dont see how it affects the council if a sub contractor turns up with a hired mewp or there own...as long as the job gets done on time to the letter whats the difference ???

Id querie it with the council TO for clarification

[kentjames]

Every time i see crews doing council work i wonder how the hell did they get the contract looking like that. Ive seen some with hardly any PPE, one was waving a saw around constantly one handed out of a MEWP slashing some holly back.

 

It should be tested on your quality of work, capabilities and testimonials rather than a H&S scheme you have signed up to by paying money and submitting paperwork.

[Ty Korrigan]

Here in Frenchy France...

Our local council wouldn't look twice at us first (wee chipper and trailer set up with HB20 grinder)

Once they saw we had grown to a vat reg limited company with on the book employees running a 6" road tow, tipper truck and second vehicle for a grinder etc they started giving us work.

Another satellite town to Rennes also local to us demands alot of paperwork EACH time you are invited to tender and puts in clauses such as "Must use a 12" chipper or be able to grind stumps down to 70cm" Yes no joke, that is exactly what they do. So that only the larger regional companies get the work.

Being vat reg is important here and also limited companies rather than sole traders are more likely to be used.

Ty

[eggsarascal]

Basically my local council demands that in order to be eligible to tender for council tree work you must have the full arsenal of equipment including a timber lorry. A firm recently turned up to reduce some council trees close to my house, no need for anything other than a saw and a chipper, certainly no sign of a logging lorry. Surely its about what you bring to the job, not what's sitting in your yard, and does it really matter if you own or rent the equipment. Does this sort of policy:confused1: discriminate against smaller companies, thus increasing the chasm between the big and smaller firms, giving the big firms the monopoly on council work?

 

One of my brothers was a partner in a big vehicle recovery company, they were told by the biggest council in the country that they had to have certain vehicles to tender for the contract.

 

They had one heavy recovery truck that when kitted out stood them in at £400k. Our kid reckoned that it used to make him weep when he was sitting in his office looking at a vehicle that rarely left the yard apart from going for its six weekly (?) inspection.

[penfold]

When I did my level 4 we did a contract management module and in the first lecture we were told this: "the golden rule of contract management is this- he who pays the gold makes the rules".

[Gareth Dalzell]

I think it's also to do with capacity and ease of admin. Many of the jobs could be done by a smaller copy, but then they'd have to get another larger company to do the larger jobs in a reasonable time. Also council might need 30 small jobs done in a day so they need a larger capacity company - so it could be a volume thing also.

[Gray git]

You'll tend to find those who can provide all the paperwork for some of the council contracts are big anough to have an administrator to do all the paperwork but staff who on the most part have never seen any of it.

Funny thing is I'm a authorised county council contractor but was unable to forfill all the ludicrously long winded criteria for our town/district 2 year pre qualification questionnaire 180pages worth which only counted as 40% of your overall score I believe and 60% on price calculation format. I know some of the TO's were not happy about how it was done.

[kentjames]

I also learned that Landscape Services who do a lot of the council work is owned by Kent County Council. I'm not sure how that would stand up if someone challenged it given they win a lot of the 5 -10 year contracts when they go out for tender?