Could you please provide the following information:
1. A comprehensive list of all transport vehicle contracts managed by your council, including contracts for private hire, public hire, minibuses (including vehicles with more than 8 seats), and coaches.
2. The number of companies that tendered for each of the contracts.
Please note for these responses will be referring to school transport and public transport. Social care and patient transport are completed on a one off telephone basis and are not contracts.
Compliance with this request would exceed the appropriate cost limit under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which is £450 or 18 hours of officer time. There are 1450 contracts and to check how many bids received we would need to go into each contract and tender, which we estimate would take in the region of 5 minutes per contract, totalling 133 hours work.
Under the Act, there is a duty to provide advice and assistance as to how a request can be refined to fit within the appropriate limit. Unfortunately, due to the way the data is held, this is not possible for this request.
3. The name(s) of the transport vehicle company(s) that successfully won each contract.
4. The value of each contract, including the amount awarded and any relevant terms.
5. The start and end dates of each contract.
The answer to questions 1,3,4 and 5 can be found at the following link Transport Contracts.
With regards to school transport, there is not normally a fixed end date for each contract, there are notice periods as set out in the Conditions of Contract. The annual amount is not necessarily the amount awarded when the contract was most recently tendered, as amendments can be made to contracts at any time.
6. Information on when tenders for the next round of contracts will commence, including any scheduled dates or timelines.
Public Tenders are normally issued 4-6 months before the contract expires.
School and social care contracts are not tendered in rounds, tenders can be published at any time.
7. Details regarding the platform or method used for the submission of tenders, such as an online portal or physical submission process.
Both public and school transport use the Devon County Council Provision of Passenger Transport Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). Tenders are carried out via online portal, email or phone quote.