Principals achieving health and safety outcomes: Manukau City Council’s procurement arrangements

Appendix A: Evaluation of Manukau CC's Approach Against the Department's Draft Guideline

Good practice principles from draft guideline	Manukau CC		Comments
Good practice principles from draft guideline	Policy intent	In practice	Comments
Good practice area: Pre-tendering
Principal identifies work covered by the contract and hazards likely to occur.	Fully meets	Fully meets	Prior to changes, Manukau CC partially met this principle. The five council departments (Roading, Parks, Waste, Properties and Storm Water) followed the same process but did it separately. By default, health and safety requirements were included in the tender process. As part of the changes, the health and safety manual was updated with changed processes and forms.
Consideration is given to how health and safety issues will be included in the tender documents.	Fully meets	Partially meets	This is likely to be done more comprehensively for larger/ longer-term contracts with greater health and safety risks. All council departments complete the required paperwork. However, some departments may do this more comprehensively than others.
Relevant tender and contract information are developed by the principal.	Fully meets	Fully meets	All relevant health and safety information is included when tender and contract documents are prepared.
Any significant health and safety information available is provided to potential tenderers.	Fully meets	Mostly meets	This is done more comprehensively for larger/longer-term/ higher-risk contracts. For smaller contracts, contract managers may rely on contractors' track record with Manukau CC as an indicator that they are already aware of relevant health and safety information.
Good practice area: Pre-qualifying the contractor
Where health and safety is determined to be a critical component of the tender and contract, tenderers are expected to submit a health and safety plan.	Fully meets	Fully meets	This principle can come under pressure with small contracts where there is a short timeframe to complete the work (e.g. closure of a swimming pool for maintenance over a two-week period). Culture change within Manukau CC has been (and continues to be) necessary to move some contract managers toward the inclusion of health and safety plans in the pre-qualification process. To facilitate an efficient tender process, contractors who have previously submitted health and safety plans are not required to prepare a contract-specific health and safety plan until after they are awarded the contract, but work is not allowed to start until an approved health and safety plan is in place.
Tenderers are asked to complete a pre-qualification questionnaire.	Fully meets	Fully meets	Manukau CC followed this principle prior to the health and safety procurement changes. The pre-qualification questionnaire was included within the tender template documents. An overriding concern raised by contractors when the changes were introduced related to the volume of paperwork that needed to be completed. Contractors had to pre-qualify separately with any of the five separate departments of Manukau CC to whom they were submitting tenders. Another concern with the previous pre-qualification questionnaire was the extensive use of free-text fields (e.g. "please describe how you will comply"). This led to contractors taking shortcuts, cutting and pasting from previous tender documents, with resultant loss of specificity and quality of information provided. Now, partner organisations can access their previous pre-qualification details online and update these as needed, eliminating duplication of effort for each tender they submit. The pre-qualification questionnaire can therefore rely more extensively on "yes/no" type responses, which can be completed more quickly, reducing compliance costs.
The pre-qualification questionnaire assesses health and safety management and, depending on the scale or significance of the hazards, a detailed appraisal of technical competence.	Fully meets	Fully meets
The pre-qualification questionnaire covers health and safety documentation, personnel, subcontractors and health and safety performance.	Fully meets	Fully meets	All of this information is provided by the contractor and signed as being true and correct. Legally, this enables Manukau CC to rely on the face validity of the information provided without having to audit this information.
The pre-qualification arrangements are sufficiently flexible to cater for the range of work (e.g. simplified questionnaire for quick/low-risk work versus tailored questionnaire for larger/higher risk work).	Partially meets; planned enhancements will fully meet	Partially meets	The arrangements currently in place are applicable to a wide range of project types (e.g. the questionnaire is relevant to a range of competencies). However, the current arrangements are inflexible with regard to project size. In late 2008, Manukau CC commenced a review of the arrangements to increase their flexibility for smaller/lower risk projects. These enhancements are currently under consideration and have not yet been implemented.
Responses are assessed as to the general ability and competence of the contractor for the work. Non-compliant tenderers are excluded or, where circumstances permit, given the opportunity to address shortcomings.	Fully meets	Partially meets	This principle is usually followed. However, culture change has been required to move some contract managers away from awarding work based on quoted price and then subsequently negotiating health and safety arrangements.
Good practice area: Managing the tender
Relevant information is given to tenderers by the principal through the information for tenderer document.	Fully meets	Fully or mostly meets	This is likely to be done most comprehensively for larger/longer-term contracts with greater health and safety risks.
The information for tenderer document provides a focus for bringing project health and safety issues to attention of parties, enables tenderers to be fully aware of health and safety requirements, provides a benchmark against which tender submissions can be measured, and provides a basis for development of the contractor's health and safety plan for the project.	Fully meets	Fully or mostly meets	This is likely to be done most comprehensively for larger/longer-term contracts with greater health and safety risks. All council departments complete the required paperwork. However, some departments may do this more comprehensively than others.
Tenderers are asked to complete a health and safety questionnaire or checklist (whether or not pre-tendering is used).	Fully meets	Fully meets	Similar comments as for pre-qualification questionnaire.
Principal provides information and answers questions specific to the job, assists with completion of hazard assessment and method statements where appropriate.	Fully meets	Fully or mostly meets	Applied to different degrees depending on the contract. May not identify all hazards. The most significant hazards are prioritised. A checklist has been implemented to facilitate a systematic approach to hazard identification.
All tenders are thoroughly reviewed, benchmarking the tenderer's health and safety competence against tender requirements.	Fully meets	Partially meets	This process is always completed, but not always in depth. For example, in some instances, a contract manager may ascertain that a health and safety plan exists but may not comprehensively assess its applicability to the specific project.
Tenders are assessed by those with skills and knowledge relevant to the health and safety requirements of the project.	Fully meets	Partially meets; variable	Stakeholder feedback indicates that this varies between contract managers (who come from a range of backgrounds). When the current arrangements were implemented, challenges were experienced in getting contract managers to complete basic Site Safe training. One of the reasons for this was that the personnel considered they already had the requisite knowledge, yet the Health and Safety Team found the required processes were not being followed.
The tender assessment process gives an appropriate weighting to health and safety issues within the overarching tender assessment criteria.	Partially meets	Doesn't meet	Contractors must meet pre-qualification requirements for health and safety in order for their tender to be considered. However, in practice, non-compliant tenders are not always excluded. Tenders that meet pre-qualification requirements (and any other tenders accepted by contract managers) are evaluated against multiple weighted criteria. Typically, price is given a weighting of 60-70%. The remaining 30-40% is shared among all other criteria including health and safety, financial viability, experience of the contractor, personnel and so on.
Tender processes support health and safety, e.g. the proposed schedule for the project would not adversely affect health and safety.	Fully meets	Partially meets	According to Manukau CC policy, no project should commence without valid health and safety provisions in place. However, irrespective of tender processes, time pressures can and do arise in contracting. In practice, contract managers may respond to these time pressures by accepting poor quality health and safety documentation. Culture change within Manukau CC has been (and continues to be) necessary to ensure contract managers fully comply with the health and safety provisions in procurement.
The principal judges the capability/competence of tenderers where this is safety-critical, including information about the tenderer's management systems and practice, training and experience in the type and complexity of work to be carried out, and extent to which the risks of the contract will be minimised by suitable precautions.	Partially meets	Partially meets	This principle is followed, but not in a lot of depth. For example, information provided by the contractor and signed as being true and correct is not generally audited before a contract is accepted. This approach is supported by legal advice to Manukau CC that a signed statement by the tenderer protects Manukau CC against liability if any of the information provided by the tenderer is found to be incorrect. In projects where health and safety is judged to be critical, and/or where Manukau CC does not have particular confidence in or experience with a particular contractor's health and safety practices, health and safety is actively monitored throughout the contract.
Tender process includes monitoring of subcontractor selection where appropriate, to ensure health and safety requirements are met.	Partially meets	Partially meets	This is recognised as a weakness in the current approach. There is no clear requirement for Manukau CC to perform a site survey. Some contractors and/or contract managers may believe this to be overly bureaucratic or a "waste of time"; therefore, it may not be done in some cases. The Health and Safety Team could audit Manukau CC's practices to determine whether (or the extent to which) this principle is being followed.
Good practice area: Awarding the contract
The contract draws on the tender documents above where appropriate.	Fully meets	Fully meets	This is always followed.
Job registration or permit to work is used to inform risk assessments where appropriate.	Doesn't meet	Doesn't meet	Currently there are no provisions for this in Manukau CC's procurement arrangements. Manukau CC plans to undertake developmental work to address this issue in the coming year. This issue is seen as especially important in relation to working at heights. Currently, this could only be done through a notifiable works notice (Department of Labour).
A health and safety plan is completed.	Fully meets	Fully meets	Current arrangements are inflexible with regard to project size, requiring a large health and safety plan even for small projects. Proposed changes currently under consideration will address this issue by providing greater flexibility to balance health and safety plans with project size and risk.
The principal provides information and answers questions specific to the job, assists with completion of hazard assessment and method statements where appropriate.	Uses a different approach	Uses a different approach	Manukau CC provides factual information in relation to projects and provides guidance at a generic level regarding the health and safety provisions it expects contractors to have in place, but generally avoids providing direct assistance to contractors in meeting their obligations. This is based on a legal opinion obtained by Manukau CC that the provision of assistance would place additional liabilities on Manukau CC if an adverse event should occur. In principle, Manukau CC aims to engage contractors who are competent in health and safety and who therefore should not require assistance completing hazard assessments.
Incorporation of health and safety plan in contract includes detail of lines of communication, responsibilities, accountability, safe systems of work, method statements, use of client services and so on.	Fully meets	Mostly meets	A checklist has been implemented to ensure all relevant aspects are included. A process of education was required at the start to ensure this was followed. Now, these details are routinely included in contracts. Some smaller jobs may not meet all requirements.
Good practice area: Monitoring the contract
Principal checks to ensure contractor performance meets the agreed standards (including workplace conditions and practices), brings any unsafe practices or conditions to the contractor's attention and ensures they are dealt with.	Fully meets	Partially meets	Ideally, these processes should be routinely followed by contract managers. In practice, it is generally left to the Health and Safety Team to perform these checks. Contract managers tend to undertake safety assessments by exception, for example, if they become aware of specific issues in relation to a particular contract. There are some exceptions to this, for example, the Parks and Roading departments perform external audits.
Monitoring extends to subcontractors where appropriate.	Fully meets	Mostly meets	Subcontractors are recognised as a key area of risk. Often, contractors do not manage their subcontractors effectively in relation to health and safety. Manukau CC made a deliberate decision not to extend the Certified Partner arrangements to subcontractors because this would flood the database with thousands of small companies for which Manukau CC does not have direct responsibility. Instead, contractors are required to have robust processes similar to those of Manukau CC for managing subcontractors. This requirement is included in the pre-qualification questionnaire, and Manukau CC monitors the extent to which contractors follow these processes in practice. In general, large companies have robust processes and manage these well. Medium-sized and small companies are more variable in this regard.
Representatives nominated as contact people for the principal and contractor have an appropriate level of knowledge and authority that enables them to be effective in the role.	Fully meets	Partially meets	Manukau CC uses experienced contract managers with appropriate knowledge and authority to be effective in the role. Contract managers have attended Site Safe training (although it was challenging to persuade all staff to do this). Policy requires contractor representatives in a supervisory role to have Site Safe or equivalent qualifications. Large companies are able to comply with this. With smaller companies, this is challenging in practice as they can have difficulty devoting time and resources to sending staff on Site Safe courses. Manukau CC aims to ensure at least one staff member on site has Site Safe training or equivalent with a view to working towards all supervisory staff having this qualification. In practice, often there is no Site Safe qualified person on site.
Meetings are held regularly (or as appropriate to the work) to plan for and resolve health and safety issues.	Mostly meets	Mostly meets	Time and resources are prioritised. For larger/higher-risks jobs, regular meetings are always held. This is not always done for smaller jobs.
Procedures are established and followed for reporting hazards (as required by contract).	Fully meets	Partially meets	All projects have these procedures in place as part of the contractual requirements, but experience in assessing sites has been that not all hazards are reported. The Health and Safety Team is making ongoing progress in improving this situation by working with contract managers and project managers.
Principal is aware of notification requirements under the HSE Regulations 1995 and ensures the contractor complies.	Fully meets	Fully meets	This includes active follow-up by Manukau CC to ensure contractors comply.
Good practice area: Post-contract review
A post-contract review is conducted to help principal and contractor learn from health and safety performance during the contract.	Fully meets	Doesn't meet	This has been undertaken in a very few cases, using a few high-level headings to guide the review (e.g. people, culture, behaviour and so on). The process generated worthwhile discussion, and contractors provided positive feedback on the process. However, it is rarely carried out in practice, beyond cursory discussion and box-ticking to satisfy partnership audit. A full review may be perceived as a "waste of time" by some. Some stakeholders argue that a post-contract review is unnecessary when there are regular (e.g. monthly) health and safety meetings throughout the project and/or the contractor is well known to Manukau CC.
The review considers the effectiveness of the original choice of contractor, how well the contractor fulfilled the health and safety plan and managed health and safety while completing the contract, any improvements that could be made to equipment, work methods and so on, and whether the contractor is suitable for further contracts.	Fully meets	Doesn't meet
A post-contract evaluation form is completed.	Fully meets	Doesn't meet	A form exists for this purpose but has been used very rarely - estimated to be less than 1% of contracts.

Previous Section | Table of Contents