Pay and Display Machine Maintenance and Associated Back-office System and Hardware Upgrades

Herefordshire Council currently owns 73 pay and display machines of varying age for its off-street and on-street car parks within Herefordshire. A recent review of the machines, manufactured and maintained by Metric Group Ltd, has found that most are anticipated to have a few years of operational use remaining.

The council therefore needs to ensure continued maintenance of the existing machines and associated back-office system, as well as a number of hardware upgrades. Appointing a new supplier would require either wholesale replacement or significant overhauls to the existing machines, resulting in wasted utility of the current stock and disproportionate costs and operational disruption.

This award is being made under section 41(1)(a) of the Procurement Act 2023 with reference to Schedule 5.

Paragraph 6 of Schedule 5 provides that a direct award is permitted when:

"The following conditions are met in relation to the public contract:

(a) due to an absence of competition for technical reasons, only a particular supplier can supply the goods, services or works required; and

(b) there are no reasonable alternatives to those goods, services or works."

Paragraph 7 of Schedule 5 provides that a direct award is permitted when:

"The public contract concerns the supply of goods, services or works by the existing supplier which are intended as an extension to, or partial replacement of, existing goods, services or works in circumstances where:

(a) a change in supplier would result in the contracting authority receiving goods, services or works that are different from, or incompatible with, the existing goods, services or works; and

(b) the difference or incompatibility would result in disproportionate technical difficulties in operation or maintenance."