MIDDLESBROUGH COUNCIL

							                             DELEGATED DECISION
                                    DATE: 17 March 2003



     MIDDLESBROUGH NEIGHBOURHOOD SURVEY 2003
             COMMISSIONING RESEARCH


               EXECUTIVE MEMBER(S): COUNCILLOR DAVID BUDD

                           CHIEF EXECUTIVE: BRIAN DINSDALE

PURPOSE OF REPORT

1.       The purpose of this report is to request approval to contract with the
         organisation who have submitted the most economically advantageous
         tender.

RECOMMENDATIONS

2.       It is recommended that the Executive Board Member

         a)       Agrees that Middlesbrough Council should accept the tender of
                  Company B to undertake the Middlesbrough Neighbourhood
                  Survey 2003.

REASONS

3.       The recommendations are supported by the following reasons:

         (a)      The cost / quality evaluation process revealed that the preferred
                  tender was the lowest quote, but also scored comparably on
                  quality.


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                                           2



DECISION IMPLEMENTATION DEADLINE

4.       For the purposes of the scrutiny call in procedure this report is
         considered as urgent because

         a)        NRF and SRB funding for the survey will be lost if it is not spent
                   by the end of this financial year

BACKGROUND & CONSULTATION

5.       This summer, Middlesbrough Council will be conducting the next
         Middlesbrough Neighbourhood Survey on behalf of the Middlesbrough
         Partnership, the West Middlesbrough Neighbourhood Trust (NDC), the
         Streets Ahead Partnership (SRB) and the Objective 2 Priority 4
         Partnership (Eurpoean Funding)

6.       The MNS will be a major, all-embracing household survey that explores
         perceptions about quality of life and service delivery, addressing all of
         the themes of the Community Strategy. The key objectives of the
         survey are:

         -    To update baseline and monitoring data for a number of area-based
              initiatives including Neighbourhood Renewal, New Deal for
              Communities and SRB 4,5 and 6
         -    To develop in-depth community appraisals for the European Funding
              Programme
         -    To enable the Middlesbrough Partnership to identify and respond to
              issues and priorities at neighbourhood level
         -    To enable the Partnership to carry out sub-group analysis and
              identify and respond to issues and priorities for communities of
              interest.
         -    To avoid duplication by replacing a range of other smaller surveys
              that would otherwise take place in the town this summer
         -    To establish a comprehensive set of attitudinal data that will be
              made available (in aggregate format) to the public, private, voluntary
              and community sector organisations who operate within the
              Middlesbrough Partnership.

7.       Over 8000 door-to-door surveys will be completed, meaning that the
         results will strongly reflect the views of the Middlesbrough population,
         and it will also be possible to analyse then at Neighbourhood and other
         small area levels.

8.       Middlesbrough Council does not have the capacity to carry out the
         fieldwork and data inputting for this project, so market research


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                                          3


         companies and academic institutions have been invited to tender for the
         fieldwork and data input elements of the project. The analysis and
         reporting will be carried out locally by Middlesbrough Council Officers.

9.       Tenders were received from 3 companies. The quotes were as follows

          Company                          Tender Sum
          Company A                        £129,950
          Company B                        £113,000
          Company C                        £152,637

         Note: all sums are exclusive of VAT

10.        It was agreed at the outset that due to the nature of the project and the
           level of expertise that would be required to make the data robust and
           meaningful, the research proposals would be evaluated on a criteria of
           quality (60%) and cost (40%).

11.        All three bids were evaluated in line with the procedure that was set
           out in the tender brief, in order to ascertain which bid would be the
           most economically advantageous.

12.      The final result of the scoring procedure was as follows:

                                     Quality       Cost              Overall Score
          Company A                  452           212               664
          Company B                  462           314               776
          Company C                  481           74                555


OPTION APPRAISAL

13.      The tender from Company B scored highest in the tender evaluation,
         and is the lowest prices quote. In line with standing orders, Company B
         should therefore be commissioned to undertake the fieldwork and data
         inputting for the project.

FINANCIAL AND WARD IMPLICATIONS

14.      This project is being financed through ERDF, NRF, NDC and SRB.
         There are therefore no financial implications for the Council. The
         survey is a ‘Town-wide,’ multi-purpose project and will therefore have
         implications for every Ward in Middlesbrough.



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                                        4



COUNCIL POLICY FRAMEWORK AND BUDGET

15.      The report falls within the council policy framework and budget

CORPORATE OBJECTIVES

16.      Voiceover helps to meet the corporate objective of engaging with
         communities about issues that affect them.




              CORPORATE INFORMATION MANAGER: JON CARLING

BACKGROUND PAPERS

No background papers were used in the preparation of this report.

AUTHOR: Joanne Cornfield
TEL NO: 01642 729221

_______________________________________________________
Address:
Website: http://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk




Executive board report/v. May 2002