Concerns were raised over criminal record and safeguarding checks, supplier quality scores and value for money before Renfrewshire councillors approved a new £20million transport framework for children with additional support needs.
The Finance, Resources and Customer Services Policy Board approved the four-year framework during a special meeting on Monday, 18th May.
The framework will cover transport for children with additional support needs, including taxi and bus services, as well as ad-hoc transport contracts used across different council departments.
During the meeting, Councillor Audrey Doig questioned whether taxi drivers involved in the contracts would be properly checked.
She said: “I have read about the taxi contracts, but I do not see anywhere that it says that all the taxi drivers that are involved in this contract have to be criminal record checked.
“I take it that that is a given, but I just did not see it in any of the paperwork.”
Council officer Jenny Bowles said suppliers had to pass a range of due diligence checks before being allowed onto the framework.
She said: “As part of the evaluation criteria that bidders had to pass in order to get on to the contract, they had to pass a number of due diligence checks.
“That would include ensuring that they had the correct licences and any relevant checks that would be required for them to be able to obtain those licences.
“They would also have to provide a statement confirming that they have not been involved in specific types of criminal activity.”
Councillor Graeme Clark also questioned the £20million spending ceiling and whether it represented value for money.
He said: “I do not see any breakdown of expected annual spend or benchmarking against previous frameworks, so it is hard to gauge whether the £20 million represents value for money or inflationary pressure.”
Ms Bowles said the figure was an upper limit based on expected demand and future uncertainty.
She told councillors: “It is an upper ceiling, so we always ensure that we have a bit of space in there, because there is a bit of an unknown demand factor that we need to take into account.”
Questions were also raised over low scoring suppliers being recommended for the framework.
Councillor Alison Ann-Dowling asked officers to explain why companies with low overall scores were still being included.
One supplier, T W Bradley Contracts Ltd, scored 44.80 per cent overall in the ASN bus contract evaluations, while Wilson Manuel scored 37.92 per cent in the ASN taxi category.
In response, Ms Bowles said the council wanted to keep as many providers available as possible because of the limited number of operators in the market.
She said: “This is quite a difficult market. There is not a large number of players in the market, and the council has a high demand for these services.”
She added: “We would rather have as many as possible on the framework as an option, but it does not mean that those who are getting a lower score to get onto the framework would necessarily be getting a lot of business.”
Ms Bowles also said some smaller operators and sole traders struggle with formal tendering processes.
She said: “Some of these suppliers are not very well versed in the tendering process, potentially being sole traders and do not have a lot of experience in terms of submitting bids.”
The framework was approved by councillors without a vote.