£90k spend on police and fire merger consultants
More than £90,000 will be spent on consultants to work up financial plans for Staffordshire Police's controversial merger with the county’s fire service, it has been revealed.
Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Ellis has signed off a move to award a contract to Prederi to develop a business case.
The Fire Brigades Union has consistently opposed the idea of any merger claiming it would undermines trust in firefighters.
But Mr Ellis has defended the move saying it would save more than £5m a year which would be reinvested in frontline services.
A total of 35 companies expressed an interest in obtaining the contract for the business case - only five of whom submitted tenders before a stipulated deadline of March 17.
The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) stated the five applications were assessed on a criteria giving 80 per cent weight to the 'Quality' of the bid and 20 per cent to the 'Price' of the contract.
Bosses admitted the application put forward by Prederi was not the cheapest on the table.
A document signing off the deal states: "The evaluation team were impressed with the quality of the submissions received and the differences between individual tenders were relatively small.
"The evaluation team considered that most tenderers had submitted realistic and feasible tenders.
"However the evaluation team believe that the successful tenderer's submission offered a marginally more advantageous, innovative and best value solution.
"The successful tender was submitted by Prederi Ltd. Although Prederi's cost was not the lowest offered their combined scores for quality and price was the highest."
The cost for the project is £91,764.
Documents state the business case will be put out a public consultation and feedback will be included in the final version which is submitted to the Government.
Mr Ellis has previously outlined the benefits of the merger saying: ""The recommended changes retain the identities and specialisms of each of the two services.
"They reduce heavy management structures to allow extra investment in the frontline operations and would provide cost effective, resilient support functions for policing and fire."
Rich Williams, FBU chairman for Staffordshire, has argued: "Such a move risks undermining public confidence in the accountability and governance of our emergency services.
"PCCs pose an intrinsic threat to the independence and effectiveness of the fire and rescue service."
