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Professional Services Procurement Spend

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Dear Lancashire County Council,

I am writing to ask that you please provide me with the spend for your Professional Services procurement at the Authority, by which I mean the procurement of projects and consultancy through Statement of Work excluding temporary agency staff.

• What have you spent on Professional Services over the last 12 months?
• What did the authority spend on professional Services Between April 2019 and March 2020?
• Between April 2019 and March 2020, which categories had the highest level of spend throughout that period?
• Has the authority planned any large construction-based projects over the next two years?
• If you have got construction projects planned, please could you provide project details, budget and timeframes?
• What is the Councils current process to engage with professional service providers? Please could you provide details of the process and name third parties if they are being used.

Yours faithfully,

Jane French

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Good morning,

 

Request for Information under the Freedom of Information Act (2000)

 

We are writing to acknowledge receipt of your enquiry of 23.10.20 in which
you request the disclosure of information.

 

We can confirm that your enquiry will now be assigned to an officer who
will commence a search for the information you require and they will
respond in due course. The deadline date for issuing you with a full
response is 20.11.20. We will endeavour to provide a response well in
advance of this date, however, should we envisage any delays, or require
more details from you, we will contact you immediately.

 

If you have any queries about the above, please do not hesitate to contact
us, quoting ref 984.1203 (AO'K).

 

Please note that due to the ongoing Coronavirus epidemic the County
Council's resources are being diverted to cover critical functions and
some employees have had to make changes to their usual working
arrangements.  This means that, despite our best efforts, there may be a
delay in issuing our response to you.  We appreciate that this may cause
some inconvenience but we trust you understand that, in the current
crisis, it is inevitable that some delays may be experienced.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

On Behalf of the Information Governance Team Lancashire County Council PO
Box 78 County Hall Preston

PR1 8XJ

 

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Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Ms French,

 

Further to your enquiry of 23 October, officers have requested some
clarification regarding your request. Please could you confirm what you
are classing as "Professional Services"?

 

"Statement of Work" can cover a wide range of consultancy work. However,
as your request includes questions relating to construction projects,
officers have asked if you are enquiring about Professional Services work
relating to design and construction projects?

 

Many thanks and we look forward to hearing from you,

 

The Information Governance Team

Legal and Democratic Services

Lancashire County Council

[1]www.lancashire.gov.uk

 

 

 

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Dear Freedom of Information,

Thank you for your reply,

By Professional Services I mean procurement of projects and consultancy through Statement of Work that is outside IR35, but excluding temporary agency staff.
The value of any large projects that exceed 10m within all categories, for example housing, ICT, social care and education.

Please let me know if you need any further information

Yours sincerely,

Jane French

Freedom of Information, Lancashire County Council

Dear Ms French,

 

Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

 

Further to your enquiry of 30 October 2020, in which you request the
disclosure of information under the provisions of the above Act, we are
now in a position to respond.

 

•                 What have you spent on Professional Services over the
last 12 months?

•                 What did the authority spend on professional Services
Between April 2019 and March 2020?

•                 Between April 2019 and March 2020, which categories had
the highest level of spend throughout that period?

Due to your clarification that you require spend data on all projects,
consultancy and contracts exceeding £10m that cover all categories
(housing, ICT, social care and education) we have concluded that we are
unable to provide this information. To collate this information would
incur a commitment of resources in excess of the limit of £450 set by the
Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees)
Regulations 2004 (SI No. 3244 of 2004), which equates to 18 hours of work.
Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act provides that a public
authority is not obliged to comply with a request where to do so would
exceed such a limit.

 

However, please note that the county council holds a contracts register
which details all of the current contracts let by the county council's
procurement service which you may find useful. You can also view all of
our current tender opportunities. All of this information is held on the
county council's website and can be accessed via the following link;

[1]https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/business/t...

 

Further to this the county council also publishes all payments to
suppliers exceeding £250 and this information can be categorised by areas
of spend (e.g. 'professional services'). This can be accessed on our
website via the following link;

[2]https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/council/tr...

 

•                 Has the authority planned any large construction-based
projects over the next two years?

All construction projects that we are currently dealing with are out to
tender. Our procurement service at this time are not aware of any other
large term projects due in the next two years.

•                 If you have got construction projects planned, please
could you provide project details, budget and timeframes?

N/A.

•                 What is the Councils current process to engage with
professional service providers? Please could you provide details of the
process and name third parties if they are being used.

The county council will be tendering a Professional and Technical Services
framework later this year. No third parties are being used in the
procurement process.

 

We trust that our response is to your satisfaction, but in the event that
you wish to complain about the manner in which your enquiry has been
handled, you should write in the first instance to The Freedom of
Information Officer, Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78, County Hall,
Preston PR1 8XJ, or email [Lancashire County Council request email] and the
matter will be referred to an Information Governance Manager for review
and reconsideration.

 

If, after this stage, you remain dissatisfied, you have the right to refer
the matter to the Information Commissioner, whose contact details are as
follows:

 

The Information Commissioner

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

 

Tel:                   01625 545700

Email:               [3][email address]   

Website:           [4]http://www.ico.org.uk   

 

Your request will now be closed as of this date.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

The Information Governance Team

Lancashire County Council

PO Box 78

County Hall

Preston

PR1 8XJ

 

Email:     [5][Lancashire County Council request email]

 

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We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Jane French please sign in and let everyone know.