This is a longish post but very important. Another Labour sh*tshow of the first order in bent Sandwell. If you read this and still vote Labour in Sadders you should seek urgent medical treatment!
There is no public information about what the hell is going on with the SEND contracts at the moment. The small operators must be very stressed about the future, as the current, extended, contract is due to expire in February.
The Review document leaked to The Skidder makes horrific reading. There is no information yet about disciplinary action against any of those involved in this fiasco (which may yet cost Taxpayers huge sums in legal fees whatever the end result is). There is supposed to be a review of the procurement process - whatever that is supposed to mean - but the little guys and gals who have fulfilled these contracts for years must be very concerned if ANY of the same staff involved initially are still having anything to do with this process!
Addendum 08/12/21: There is a suggestion - as yet unconfirmed - that 3 members of staff are all on long-term sick leave.
Highlights of the SEND Initial Review.
The Skidder has now seen the explosive top secret initial review of bent Sandwell Labour Council’s disastrous handling of the SEND contract. Prepare to be amazed and sickened ...
The deeply corrupt and incompetent Council sought takers for a new four-year deal supplying transport for those with Special Educational Needs. The pot was £22m to be shared between the successful applicants. There were four "blocks" to apply for, of varying values.
In August, 2020 the corrupt Council decided to set up a new "Dynamic Purchasing System" (DPS) with our old friend, "a closed bidder tender process". This "process" involved "scoring" the respective applications but in a way that could be easily rigged by bent Sandwell Council.
Following this "closed bidding system" all four blocks - £22m worth - were awarded to just two companies - both controlled by the same person.
Many taxi/transport firms were simply frozen out of the process. A number of them had been providing excellent service for a number of years.
With regard to the Initial Review of June,2021 the first point of concern is that the four-person Review team was headed by our old friend, Peter Farrow (see posts passim and legal notice below). Farrow is head of SMBC internal audit and this blog has always worked on the principle that he is not, himself, bent. But there are grave concerns about his ability to do his job. Of all the corrupt matters reported in The Skidder over many years, none of them were exposed by Farrow himself. He is a very high earner but the question has been asked many times what he was actually doing so that he "didn't notice" when Labour Sandwell became synonymous with fraud, cronyism and incompetence. Those questions remain unanswered and Farrow has continued in post, seemingly without investigation of his conduct.
Farrow was intimately involved in trying to give retrospective legitimacy to the massively corrupt Labour plot to destroy Lion Farm Fields with a Tory property developer.
[Incidentally, we know that Farrow was "one of the boys" with Cooper, Eling, Britton and Stevens, but why was he specifically following one of the infamous Cooper/Hopkins troll accounts attacking me and my wife? Any comment Pete?]
Farrow says that the previous history between the bent Council and the person who won all four contracts is irrelevant. The "previous history" involved serious allegations of Sandwell contracts etc favouring "the person who won" which were mostly exposed by this blog but which highly-paid Farrow had, somehow, entirely missed!
Mr Farrow insultingly implies in his Review that complaints from the current suppliers of the service who have been ditched are sour grapes. As he charmingly puts it with regard to some of the legitimate concerns raised, "there would be an element of potential disappointment and disgruntlement behind parts of them". Nice! Read on and see that these folk had/have good reason to complain.
As above, Labour rigged the procurement scoring process. Instead of an objective evaluation, the corrupt Council added elements including nebulous concepts such as the alleged ability of the contract winners to avoid forcing their workers to drive vulnerable children around in circumstances which constitute modern-day slavery.
Farrow and his team concluded that it was necessary to revisit the procurement exercise. In particular the way in which use was made of the dynamic purchasing system (DPS) including restricting the number of lots of available, how initial decision-making was considered, agreed and recorded, and how information and the lack of detail thereof was relayed back to the Council's joke "Cabinet".
Remember that bent Labour had set up the, at best, inadequate, "dynamic purchasing system" specifically for this deal!
This is a damning indictment of the tendering process. The Report to Cabinet on 16th June, 2021 was presented by Labour Councillor, Karen Simms, and the Director of Children's Services, Lesley Haggar (who has now left SMBC). The principal officers presenting the grossly inadequate Cabinet Report were Angelina Dawson and Carol Wintle (it seems that the latter has also jumped ship).
The contract process was rigged so that it did not relate solely to financial and other defined criteria yet the author(s) of the Cabinet Report (whoever that was) told Councillors that the grant of all the contracts, effectively to one person, "provided the most economically advantageous tender" subject to due diligence. Who wrote this guff, and why?
Incidentally, at the June, 2021 Cabinet meeting Councillor Zahoor Ahmed made no declaration of interest even though he has an extensive network of contacts and associates in taxi businesses in Sandwell and Birmingham.
The Farrow Review stated that a number of key Council processes were not followed. Farrow raised questions concerning the officers dealing with the procurement process, their completion of initial procurement forms and responses to bidder's applications within agreed timescales. It must be said very clearly here that there is nothing in the Review to suggest that any employee had an actual conflict of interest in relation to these contracts although Farrow makes some odd comments about this. But this is another tale of blistering incompetence - then under the purview of the now-sacked Chief Executive, David Stevens.
Farrow again seems to criticise the firms who have done this work for years as he claims there were issues regarding the quality of certain information provided by bidders. There is no suggestion from him that Sandwell staff actually tried to assist those applying for contracts and the evidence from a number of them suggests the exact opposite. But then bent Labour are not in the business of providing a service to folk!
Internal procedures within service areas were not always been followed. Why not, and is anyone going to be disciplined for this? This is a bespoke system for £22m of contracts and the rules were not complied with by these cowboys/girls.
The staff dealing with the procurement process and the Report to Cabinet must have been well aware of the identity of what is effectively a single bidder but, deliberately or otherwise, said nothing whatsoever about this in the Cabinet Report. Just as an aside, bent Labour do, of course, have a history whereby Councillors are fully aware of matters that would normally cause considerable concern but where the Cabinet Report is a masterpiece of deceit and obfuscation. That may or may not be the case here but it is of serious concern that, yet again, those presenting the Cabinet Report did not see fit to provide the public with the full facts.
Farrow himself stated that,"sufficient documented consideration does not appear to have been given to both financial modelling and the risks, particularly around resilience, associated with the the potential placing of all four large contracts with just two companies, who in themselves come under the ownership of one individual."
There is then an extraordinary conclusion from Farrow that he had found no evidence to suggest that the reduction of competition was undertaken with the sole [my emphasis] aim of benefiting two particular companies. This appears to suggest, however, that the reduction of competition was at least one aim of the newly-invented DPS procurement system. But this was not communicated to all those who spent time and money tendering in a process which bent Labour had pre-rigged.
As with all the fraud and corruption during the stewardship of the Council by Jan Britton and David Stevens, Farrow was, like them, seemingly "unaware" of what was going on. In this case Farrow is once again, happily able to conclude that there is no evidence to suggest inappropriate or fraudulent activity. In which case, why was the final award of the contracts suspended?
Bizarrely, given the very vocal complaints about the procurement process from those involved in it, Farrow deliberately excluded an analysis of the information provided by each of the suppliers/bidders for the DPS scheme or any subsequent tender submissions nor how the scoring methodology was applied to them. This seems a fundamental flaw in his Initial Review which is hardly likely to engender confidence in the whole process for the complainants.
It should be said that the DPS scheme was a wholly electronic process which created difficulty for a number of one wo/man bands (some BAME drivers) and favoured larger firms with the resources to throw at the tendering process. Rightly or wrongly, there was a feeling between many of the unsuccessful applicants that the system was deliberately discriminatory. It would seem they were right.
DPS systems were intended to be used by government and councils for commonly used purchases which are generally available on the market. Government guidance states that they are not suitable for one-off or heavily bespoke contracts which have highly complex requirements. Here, bent Labour turned a system ideal for repeatedly buying cans of baked beans into one involving contracts with very substantial safeguarding requirements noting that the essence of the contracts is the transport of vulnerable children. Why? But, of course, failing, uncaring, Sandwell Labour has let down vulnerable kids so badly, the Government had to intervene and set up the Children's Trust.
As above, Farrow didn't see the need in his Initial Review to consider "a forensic analysis" of the bids. Of course, when bent Labour were caught-out over this crock of sh*t, they went into panic mode and got Farrow to provide an incomplete Review rather than do the job thoroughly. They can't even clean up their own sick properly!
Bent Labour planned to get a further "independent review" - in other words, a mega-expensive whitewash from a pro-Labour crony.
Farrow acknowledged that the provision of the SEND service "is a very complex, detailed and technical area. Yet bent Labour set up a brand-new, flawed, untried system, to undertake it!
As ever, Labour control-freaks added subjective parameters into an objective process which Farrow laughably calls "enhanced evaluation criteria".
Also, as ever, with Labour they claim to be setting up an independent review but then prejudge the findings. Thus Farrow is able to say that the wider negative influences which have attracted national attention are, in part, unjustified. But even Farrow can only polish a turd so much, and admits that the issues raised have an element of substance and necessitate a need to revisit the procurement exercise. How this stands with his statements that there was nothing inappropriate or fraudulent in the award of the contracts is not explained, and should provide fertile ground for the lawyers who will no doubt already be involved in all this - at potentially huge costs to us taxpayers.
Farrow claims that a number of key Council processes were not followed but then tries to absolve Labour by claiming that these did not, in themselves, constitute a direct breach of the Council's Procurement and Contract Procedure Rules. We have seen this so many times over the years where Labour do wrong bu then absolve themselves from any blame.
There is a particularly cryptic comment in the Review which identifies "the need for officers involved in the exercise to formally declare if they have a potential conflict of interests." Why mention this if no conflicts actually arose? This serious issue is left hanging in the air in the Review and remains unexplained (and see further below). Why?
Farrow describes the DPS system which, as above, is not suitable for complex, bespoke, contracts. He recognises this, saying that the procedure is available for contracts for "works, services and goods commonly available on the market."
The big question which Farrow does not deal with is, who in bent Labour decided to use this system in the first place? But the decision was approved by Labour's joke Cabinet on 12th August, 2020. Maria Crompton was Interim Leader and the others who made the fateful decision were Wasim Ali, Dave Hosell's mate Keith Allcock, Jo Hadley, the Walsall resident Iqbal Padda, Farut Shaeen, the boy blunder Rajbir Singh, Jackie "Jack of No Trades" Taylor and Joyce Underhill.
There is a two-stage process. Potential bidders must first be accepted onto the system. Local operators describe to The Skidder all sorts of difficulties of getting onto the system and lack of assistance from SMBC staff. A number of long-standing operators of SEND contracts were simply bounced-off the process at this stage.
Once on the system, firms could bid for the actual contracts.
Mystery surrounds what happened next which is absolutely astonishing given the multi-million-pound nature of this contract. A decision was made to split the entire contract into 5 lots (4 of which are the subject to Farrow's Review). Incredibly Farrow's does not say who made this decision where the possibility for fraud and corruption is obvious nor where it was recorded. Clearly if a politician made this decision they must be identified forthwith not least in case there is a requirement for a police investigation. If an officer made the decision and failed to record it then there are surely grounds for instant dismissal of that person? It gets worse, in that this key rigging of the contract was not mentioned in the Report to Cabinet in August 2020 or the one in July, 2021 which was intended to approve the contracts to just two (connected) firms. As above, we have seen that Reports to Cabinet at bent Sandwell Labour are regularly works of fiction, but if officers were involved, then disciplinary proceedings must now be brought irrespective of any political pressure often applied to officers by the comrades.
The DPS was divided into over 100 individual contracts which were awarded purely on price. Labour decided to rig the process by also taking into account objective matters - fertile ground for deliberate interference, corruption or, at best, incompetence.
Bent Labour's deliberate rigging of the DPS system is a direct breach of Regulation 18 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 which outlaws artificial narrowing of the competition.
On a technical point the DPS remains open for all operators accepted onto the system although even Farrow accepts that losing firms may be disinclined to maintain their registration/presence on the DPS (and that new suppliers are unlikely to join) when firms have already been awarded four-year contracts.
A provider objected to the process on the basis that there was an alleged breach of Regulation 24 of the PCR in that the size of Lot 1 led to a distortion of the competition rules and was not in keeping with the Council's procurement strategy either. Bent labour had lumped 55% of the spend into Lot 1 and specified that tendering operators produce evidence of turnover twice the level of the contract value. This was a rigging of the process to ensure that only large firms could possibly win Lot 1. At the time of the complaints, an unidentified officer of the Council effectively told one complainant to f off as it was the Council's "prerogative" to set out how it wanted the service delivered. The arrogance of this statement alone is worthy of disciplinary procedure, and even Farrow accepts there is no evidence that “wider consideration” was given to this aspect of the matter. Why not? These people are getting paid to look at the “wider considerations” not to brush off potential service providers with insulting nonsense?
This pre-rigging of the DPS may, says Farrow, cause bidders to query the system noting the very limited number of lots and the significant value of them. Indeed Farrow says that not only might bidders query this bent set-up but they may challenge it. I feel sure that all paries aggrieved by this process including, ironically, the successful bidders, will have taken or be taking legal advice. At the very least they must be compensated by bent labour for the time and expense involved in going through this charade. Given Farrow's bizarre contention that there was nothing inappropriate or fraudulent in the award of the contracts it is, ironically again, hard to see why the winner has not got a nailed-on claim for very considerable financial sums arising from failure to confirm the award of the multi-million pound contracts.
On a further technical point, Farrow described a whole list of additional requirements dreamt up by the comrades. There is no evidence from Farrow as to who dreamt up all this and who approved it. In any event, the smaller operators feel that the process was designed to squeeze them out in favour of the "big boys". They were right.
As above, there is no evidence as to who decided the crucial division of the main contract into only 4 lots. The award criteria would be assessed on price 50%, quality 40% and social value 10% weightings. Even if - if - there was no actual corruption here, this shows the typical nature of the Sandwell Labour dictatorship where price is only half the consideration of a contract and that a host of "politically-correct" considerations took equal priority.
As above, there is no record of who made this major decision (!) and Farrow whitewashes this critical episode by putting it down to "the team", whatever the f*ck he means by that!
We have seen time and time again that under the stewardship of Jan Britton and David Stevens the corrupt paid service failed to keep adequate records with the obvious intention that their dubious and/or fraudulent conduct was concealed from view.
Here, Farrow, states that there was no formal process or evaluation undertaken, and no written records of the discussions that MAY [my emphasis] have taken place. Many staff in the bent paid service are well-paid and have gold-plated pensions but how can they get away with making decisions of this magnitude in such an unprofessional (at best) manner?
The supposedly professional "team” told Farrow that the "economies of scale" would be beneficial although, when only half a contract weighting related to price, it is hard to see how this could be true. In any event there was no formal evaluation of this and no financial modelling was undertaken. Once again there has to be some sort of disciplinary considerations in respect of the shambolic performance of the "team" (assuming that they were not acting under political pressure although, even then, they had a duty to "blow the whistle"). Farrow pointed out that this was all back-of- the-envelope stuff and that no formal evaluation was made whether this would result in a lower contract spend at all. In other words the “economy of scale” argument was b*llocks.
The professional [sic] team considered that putting all the eggs into 4 baskets would actually reduce risk exposure but, yet again, there was no written record of any of this (if it actually happened).
Although the officers had, for whatever reason, failed to inform their political masters that the DPS had been pre-rigged (and assuming, of course, that the political masters were not well aware of this already) Cabinet went ahead and made the decision to approve the DPS although “it was not clear that they had reasonably been aware or understood its nature”. In other words, moronic Labour Councillors simply do as they are told and are quite happy to nod through a multi-million pound contract they do not remotely understand. That’s the Sandwell Labour way!
The scheme restricted flexibility yet Farrow points out that the Cabinet was told "there is no need to consult" the very people who have been delivering the service for years. The Cabinet was quite happy to sh*t on and ignore real people as they have done countless times for 47 years.
Nevertheless, many existing existing suppliers and even service users offered their views to officers concerning the unfair nature of the tendering process but it appears that their concerns were never passed on to Councillors who were, anyway, too thick to question any of this.
It is necessary to quote a whole paragraph of the Review which is damning:
"External guidance has been sought on the use of a DPS in this way, and it was confirmed that given the required characteristics of a DPS, it may be theoretically possible to establish a DPS as outlined, but it was doubtful such an outcome would be in accordance with the purpose of a DPS and that it appeared counter intuitive to select such a small group of providers to deliver almost all of the Council's requirements.”
The fact remains that contracts were awarded subject to Cabinet confirmation under this very scheme which the Council is now trying to renege upon. Once again, m'learnd friends of the winning companies should have a field day noting Farrow's finding that the award of the contract was not inappropriate or fraudulent.
The budget constraints on this service, which were being monitored at Director level, that were presented to the public were completely wrong although, again, Farrow does not identify the guilty employees. In terms, the Cabinet stated in June 2021 that the annual budget was £2.55 million but pressure suggested the annual spend would be nearer £3m. I myself was perplexed by this as the suggestion was that a four-year contract would cost around £12 million and yet the tender was for £22m. No Labour Cabinet members queried this. Farrow laughably states that an outside party (that's you and me dear readers) would have the impression that the contracts are vastly over the set budget and this "adds voice to the wider concerns over the process as a whole."
In other words, both the Cabinet and officers have been placing wildly inaccurate financial figures into the public domain. Of course there have been serious issues arising with Mark Stocks, the Council's external auditor, but surely it is his job to stop a deeply corrupt Council acting in this manner?
Some staff are identified by job title. The actual procurement form to start the DPS process was to be completed and approved by "the relevant Budget Manager and the Procurement Business Partner". But wait for it, wait for it! For this particular procurement exercise the form had only been partially completed with many of the sections of the form not completed. There was no approval from the Budget Manager or the Procurement Business Partner for the procurement process to proceed either using the incomplete forms or otherwise! Yet it went ahead anyway. Once again this smacks of incredible incompetence (at best) and surely these two individuals knew that the process has started using incomplete forms?
Farrow lists no less than 11 parts of the form which were not provided and which he describes as "key sections".
It seems that these two individuals attempted to patch up the system as it went along but Farrow states "there is a lack of evidence and approval to support the decision-making process" right from the start of the exercise. What the f*** was going on? This was £22m worth of contracts!!!!
Now here's a surprise! The two winning firms put in "very similar" documentation - sometimes cut and pasted under different logos. There is nothing inherently wrong with that but the fact that they scored nearly equal "points" in the tendering process was hardly shocking, noting that the two companies are owned and controlled by the same person!
In a garbled paragraph Farrow notes that SMBC were aware the two winning firms were under the control of the same owner.
It was critical to the contracts - especially to Lot 1 - that the bidders could show that their turnover was at least twice the contract value. But the two winning Companies only presented forecasts for the 2022 year ends. These were "accepted by the assessment team”. Even Farrow points out, "forecasts are just that, rather than actual historic information". In other words, the employees awarded £22m worth of contracts on speculative, "guesswork" figures provided by the ultimately successful bidders which it was impossible to check! How can staff get away with this?
If the other firms on the DPS were forced to supply proper accounts then this was clearly also a discriminatory process.
But, once again, we have to ask whether there should be disciplinary proceedings against the staff concerned noting what appears to be a catalogue of flagrant breaches of procurement rules?
It seems that Farrow himself, once the contracts have been provisionally awarded and this Review started, asked for the accounts for the 2021 year-ends. These were made available (although in unaudited/unverified accounts) although Farrow suggests that both Companies “met the financial criteria". Once again, given Farrow's earlier comments, how can Sandwell renege on the provisional contract awards? Surely bent labour are throwing themselves open to massive legal action?
As far as price was concerned, Farrow state states the two winners put in the two most expensive bids yet won the contracts. The price offered by one competitor for Lot 1 was over £3m lower than the winning bid (!) but, as we have regularly seen, Sandwell Labour are always very happy to f*** taxpayers over when they have their own twisted agenda.
The Labour Cabinet were working on a suggested bid for Lot 1 of £3m but provisionally awarded that contract at £15.5m. Even given the so-called egregious errors by paid staff and the Councillors putting the inaccurate budget into the public domain by this is an absolutely stonking difference and we have to ask again where Mr Stocks, the external auditor, was when all this was going on.
We have seen above that sleazy Sandwell Labour pre-rigged the process but in another amazing part of his Review, Farrow states that as part of the process a "transport plan"was to be submitted. Even here, the plans of the two winning bidders were "incomplete" but accepted by Sandwell staff.
The winning bidders supplied lists of vehicles stating that they would be fully compliant with emission standards whereas Farrow states that the evidence does not support this statement without "fleet change". He laughably states that,"it is not clear what tangible commitments were being made". Please remember that the assessment team were applying their own subjective criteria to a massive 50% of the weightings for the bids.
There is another cryptic section on conflicts of interest but the fact is that staff did not complete the relevant Council forms as they should have done. Farrow says that there is no evidence of conflicts but it is curious that he has gone to such lengths in his Review to refer to this subject. Of course the failure to complete important documentation is another major indictment of senior management, right up to the top.
There has been widespread public comment on two findings of The Office of the Traffic Commissioner in respect of the winning firms. These were certainly taken very seriously by Birmingham City Council, another Labour basket case, but Farrow says that undertaking searches for such information was not part of the “due diligence” exercise in this case. Yet he goes on to say that having discussed the matter with the so-called “team”, "it is understood that the issues as detailed we're not of sufficient significance to have impacted upon the outcome of the exercise". This rather suggests that the "team" were actually aware of the two decisions and this needs to be clarified as a matter of urgency.
In usual management b*llocks-speak, “lessons have been learnt” and new systems introduced “moving forward” lol!
There were some technical discrepancies in respect of the information on the winning bidders held at Companies House and, once again, Farrow has recommended an enhanced due diligence regime moving forward.
The existing firms had over 100 years of collective experience in operating the SEND contracts but many were bounced off the DPS scheme at the first hurdle. They were invited to reapply although the “Procurement Business Partner” sent a misleading letter with regards to the timescale. Farrow agreed that the letter was not specific and could have caused confusion with bidders. Even though the whole system was rotten, officers at Sandwell Council were also messing up up really basic legal and procedural requirements! To pile Pelion on Ossa, the officers did not deal with the number of the resubmissions within their own publicised timescale.
Farrow's Recommendations:
1 revisit the procurement exercise including a reconsideration of the decision to batch all of the contracted work into just four lots;
2 revisit using the DPS again for this task. If this is not possible, then move as many of the quality checks to the first stage of the process;
3 undertake a financial modelling exercise in order to assess the cost implications within the service area;
4 reconsider the price/quality scoring ratio;
5 the initial form to start the process must be completed and approved before the exercise commences and conflict of interest forms must also be completed and signed off by all those taking part in the procurement exercise, before any such exercise commences,
6 there should be a wider review across the Council regarding increasing due diligence (this is really basic stuff. What on earth were Jan Britton and David Stevens doing over so many years? No wonder corruption, cronyism and incompetence bedevil's this Labour sh*tshow);
7 if, in the future, the Office of the Traffic Commissioner makes findings in respect of firms on the SEND contract then they should be notified to the Council within one week;
8 timescales for action must be specified precisely by the Council (again this is absolutely basic legal stuff so what the hell is going on? This is a legal requirement in procurement cases!);
9 this one is absolutely incredible - in procurement matters cases should not be proceeded with further until all the required information is received! FFS! I make no apology for repeating myself here but this is stating the bleeding obvious. The paid service is now so unfit for purpose that a recommendation like this has to be made! An absolute disgrace;
10 another shocker. The Council should not rely on unaudited accounts without a "critical eye" and should not accept forecasts without accompanying independent corroborating information. How could Labour ever allowed such appalling practice to develop in the first place (unless, of course, they actually wanted to facilitate corruption?);
11 for larger contracts a financial appraisal report should be completed for each supplier by the Finance team;
12 changing Labour's extensive history of concealing information from Cabinet Reports that are in the public domain, full information should be supplied in those reports. That, of course, will never happen under the bent Labour regime;
13 Farrow gives the corrupt comrades a "get out of jail card" by recommending that, in procurement cases, the decision should be split between private and public papers. In other words, the comrades will be able to continue to deceive the people of Sandwell as they have done for many years simply by citing "confidentiality" in this type of case. So much for openness and transparency eh readers?
Any Sandwell morons out there still going to vote Labour?
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