Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Transportation, Highways and Sustainability

(Listing Officer: A Livesey, email: Anna.livesey@coventry.gov.uk)

Further to Minute 41 above, the Cabinet considered a private report of the Director of Business, Investment and Culture and the Director of Transportation, Highways and Sustainability, that would also be considered at the meeting of Council on 5th September 2023, which set out the commercially confidential matters relating to proposals for a Coventry Strategic Energy Partnership.

In accordance with the Constitution, Councillor N Akhtar, Chair of the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee, attended the meeting for this item of business (both the public and the private reports in minutes 25 and 28 respectively) to agree the need for urgency such that call-in arrangements would not apply. The reason for urgency being that the procurement timeline currently showed the date by which the Council would enter into contract with the preferred bidder as being 12th September 2023. In order to achieve this, the notification letter to all the bidders stating the award of the contract to the preferred bidder and commencement of the mandatory 10-day standstill period needed to commence on 1st September 2023. Failure to issue these letters on that date would mean a delay to the ability of the parties to enter into a contract on 12th September 2023 and therefore could also delay the implementation of the Joint Venture arrangements.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet:

1)  Authorises the award of the Strategic Energy Partner contract to Bidder A as the Preferred Bidder for the delivery of the Strategic Energy Partner Project.

2)  Delegates authority to the Director of Business, Investment, and Culture and the Director of Transport, Highways, and Sustainability, following consultation with the Chief Operating Officer (Section 151 Officer), the Chief Legal Officer, the Cabinet Member for Jobs, Regeneration, and Climate Change and the Cabinet Member for Strategic Finance and Resources, to undertake the necessary due diligence, finalise and complete the process of entering into the contract with the Preferred Bidder.

3)  Notes the role of the Coventry Shareholder Committee in the governance arrangement associated with the delivery of the Strategic Energy Partner project as set out in paragraph 1.8 of the report.

Recommends that Council:

1)  Receive and note the decisions of the Cabinet as outlined in recommendations 1) to 3) above.