Date: 5thJuly2016
FOIA Ref No: TRE/AAZJEN / Corporate Procurement
Telephone: +44 (0)161 234 3591
Room 407, Town Hall, Manchester ,
M60 2LA
Dear Mr Spring
Re:Request for information TRE/AAZJEN,Contracting for Goods and Services
Thank you for your request for information, which was received by Manchester City Council on 17thJune 2016 and has been considered under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Request:-
Freedom of Information request - Contracting for Goods and services
DearManchesterCity Council,
Please supply me with the following statistics for your Council for Goods and Services procurement where 'goods' are tangible products such as pens or computers, generally known as supplies; 'works' are "the construction or demolition of buildings, both residential and non-residential, repair to the fabric of these buildings, construction of roads, bridges, tunnels, and the installation of gas, electric, and plumbing services" and 'services' are the provision of an intangible product such as care or refuse collection, whether it is carried out internally or externally. The following payments should be EXCLUDED: foster carer payments; payments to pension funds; payments to other local authorities for placement of clients or other non-commercial activities; payments to individuals for expenses, insurance settlements, council tax refunds, etc; Benefits payments and transfer payments.
The figures should cover (unless stated) the period 1st April 2015 to the 31st March 2016.
1. Council’s net revenue budget.
2. Total value of Goods and Services acquired by the council from third party suppliers.
3. The total value of contracts held by the council as at the 31st March 2016.
4. Cost of procurement management (Total cost of procurement function (staff salaries, on-costs, share of central recharges, dedicated system costs, contracted third party support costs) for a given period).
5. The total number of contract managers named on the council contract register as at 31 March 2016.
6. The total number of contracts held by the council as at the 31st March 2016.
7. The total value of Goods and Services spent with suppliers whose head office/business address is in the area of the council.
8. The % saving (comparing the new contracted price to the old contracted price) in the top 5 valued (Total anticipated spend over the life of the contract) contracted procurements undertaken by the council awarded during the period 1st April 2015 to the 31st March 2016. (Only details of savings from procurements conducted by the Council itself should be included unless the procurement was for a Framework agreement for the Council itself or for use by other Public Sector Bodies in which case the saving achieved can be included.)
9. The number of suppliers the spend with which adds up to 80% of the total spend with Third Parties.
10. The total number of contracts held by the council as at the 31st March 2016 with formalised and active contract management (Formalised contract management is viewed as regular, recorded and communicated processes for reviewing progress, issues, performance, outputs and outcomes including remedial action linked to contract terms by a responsible individual or individuals or teams that is active).
11. The total number of contracted suppliers to the council as at the 31st March 2016 with partnership arrangements (A Partnership is defined as where the council and an identified supplier develop a close and long-term relationship governed by an agreement where the two share mutual objectives and where there are shared success objectives and adopt a high level of purposeful cooperation to maintain a trading relationship over time).
12. The total number of suppliers (contracted or not) that received a payment for Goods or services.
Response:-
It is estimated that the statutory cost limit of £450 (which is calculated as being approximately 2.5 days of a council officer's time to determine whether the Council holds the information and to locate, retrieve and extract it) would be exceeded if the Council supplied the requested information to you. If you require more information about the Council’s Fees & Charges Policy, this may be downloaded from If you do not have internet access and require a paper copy, please let me know.
The 2000 Act does not oblige the Council to comply with requests that exceed the statutory cost limit and therefore I am not able to comply with your current request.
However, you may find the following links useful.
The Council publishes details of its expenditure over £500 and this can be found via the following link:
The Council publishes details of awarded contracts. These can be found via the following link. When you have accessed the link, go to “Narrow your results”, then under “organisation”, select “Manchester City Council” , click update and a list of our published contracts is provided:
If you are able to modify or narrow the scope of your request, it may be possible to provide some information without exceeding the statutory limit.
If you decide to modify/narrow the scope of your request, please note that this will be treated as a new request and dealt with in accordance with the time limits specified in the 2000 Act. If I do not hear from you within three months of the date of this letter, I will assume that you do not wish to submit a revised request and will close my file.
Please note if you are not satisfied with this response you may ask for an internal review. If you wish an internal review to be undertaken you should contact the Democratic Services Legal Team, whose address is, PO Box 532, Town Hall, Manchester, M60 2LA, email:
in the first instance. A copy of the Council’s access to information complaints procedure can be downloaded from
If you do not have internet access and require a paper copy, please let me know.
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review process, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545700
Fax: 01625 524510
If you have any queries about this letter please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.
Yours sincerely
Paul Murphy