
Next in our series of ebriefings on the Government’s Green Paper: Transforming public procurement; looking at the Chapter 4 proposal to change the basis of contract awards.
The contract in question is the NHF (National Housing Federation) Schedule of Rates Form of Contract 2011, which we, at Anthony Collins Solicitors, comprehensively revised and updated for Rand/M3 in 2011, and still keep up-to-date for them.
The court case was a decision of the Court of Appeal in Sutton Housing Partnership Limited v Rydon Maintenance Limited [2017] EWCA 359.
I was pleased to see that the contract passed scrutiny with flying colours, even though Sutton had substituted their own KPI (Key Performance Indicator) Framework for the KPI Framework document provided with the template contract. Had Sutton used the version from the template contract, both the MAP (Minimum Acceptable Performance) levels and worked examples would have been clearly set out in the KPI Framework document. Instead, in the KPI framework drafted by Sutton, the MAP levels were expressed as “examples”, leading to a concern whether those MAP levels were contractual requirements.
In the case, the court decided that unless the “example” figures were treated as being the contractual MAP levels, the contractual provisions dealing with termination for failure to achieve those MAP levels would have been redundant. As the court had established that the MAP levels were contractual requirements, they upheld Sutton’s right to terminate the contract (following a notice period to give Rydon an opportunity to improve performance) as a result of Rydon’s failure to achieve those MAP levels.
Although this was a victory for Sutton, they won’t be able to recover the full costs of the court proceedings from Rydon, and will be out of pocket as a result. Sutton initially lost in the High Court and, therefore, had to appeal to the Court of Appeal. Had the MAP levels been clearly expressed, as set out in the template KPI Framework provided with the NHF Schedule of Rates Form of Contract 2011, it is very unlikely that Rydon would have even gone to court, let alone have won in the High Court.
This case demonstrates that when you are amending template contracts and replacing documents within them, those bespoke documents and amendments need to cover everything clearly in the template documents they are being drafted to replace.
Rather than substituting whole documents, it is usually better and safer to keep the documents provided as part of the template contract, and add into them any bespoke amendments (such as to add financial incentivisation, as Sutton wished to do) rather than replacing them altogether.
If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Andrew Millross. For more information about the work that we do at Anthony Collins Solicitors, please visit our website.
Next in our series of ebriefings on the Government’s Green Paper: Transforming public procurement; looking at the Chapter 4 proposal to change the basis of contract awards.
The Academies Financial Handbook is updated annually by the Department for Education and the Education and Skills Funding Agency; it contains a number of governance requirements for academy trusts.
Supreme Court publishes key decision for those working in the UK’s gig economy.
The 'Chocolate Snowman Appeal' is an amazing initiative that Anthony Collins Solicitors' (ACS) employees take part in every year.
The Building Safety Bill (the Bill) is said to be the most significant and wide-ranging change to the regulatory environment for higher risk building (HRBs) for over 45 years.
On 4 November 2020, the Restriction of Public Exit Payments Regulations 2020 (the Regulations) came into force; exit payments for the public sector were capped at £95,000.
The case was brought by the Official Receiver who sought disqualification orders under section 6 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (CDDA 1986) against the seven trustees of Kids Company and its CEO. It illustrates well the tension between the role of a fulltime paid CEO of a large charity and the role of its board as voluntary trustees/directors.
At the end of 2020, The Charity Governance Code was updated or 'refreshed' as it is termed on its website.
Anthony Collins Solicitors is today (Thursday 11 February) revealing the scale of its social impact during 2020.
In their first podcast of this series, current and future trainees will discuss their journey and route to securing a training contract at Anthony Collins Solicitors.
To receive invitations to our events, as well as information and articles on legal issues and sector developments that are of interest to you, please sign up to Newsroom.