FOI request (FOIR-363420988)

Sussex Local Wildlife Sites Initiative

Requested Wed 15 September 2021
Responded Wed 06 October 2021

As a Freedom of Information Request, please can you advise as to the procurement process for the appointment of Sussex Local Wildlife Sites Initiative to carry out the current review of Local Wildlife Sites within the Borough.

As part of your response, please advise as to the value of the instruction and provide a copy of their current Professional Indemnity Insurance Cover.

---

Response

The Freedom of Information Act is based on recorded information held by a local authority and not a tool to ask questions or opinions, however to be helpful I can advise as follows:

This commission fell within a type B contract, which means for our purposes the value of the commission falls between £5,000 and £50,000. The value of the commission was only just short of falling within a category A commission and a long way short of a category C commission and so, as is normal for a contract of this size, we followed the purchase order route rather than refer to Legal Services to prepare a contract. The Council did not need to go to notice as required under our financial operating procedures.

The appointment of the specialist received the necessary internal sign-off to proceed at both assistant director and chief finance officer level. We would not provide or publish commercial in-confidence information without the supplier's permission but we can confirm that in this case the supplier's professional indemnity cover was checked and was in accordance with our purchase order standard terms and conditions that can be found at:

https://www.hastings.gov.uk/business-commerce/supplying-council/conditions-purchase/