Westminster City Council faces new legal challenge to parking contract award

Parking services provider Apcoa has begun legal action against Westminster City Council over a £50 million contract to provide parking enforcement services to the borough, which was awarded to rival bidder Mouchel in February but has since been re-tendered.

According to the Evening Standard, Apcoa claims that Westminster favoured Mouchel over the the other bidders for the contract, which included Apcoa and NSL, the existing provider of parking services in Westminster, by applying “unpublished and unannounced criteria” when deciding on which of the parties should be named as the preferred bidder.

As reported on Local Government Lawyer, the bidding process was restarted in March under a three-month “accelerated procurement process” after the council's in-house lawyers said that the council had evaluated the preferred bidder on “price criteria that went beyond what was originally published to tenderers".

At the time, a Westminster spokesperson told Local Government Lawyer: "During the standstill period, the bidders were debriefed. At this stage it came to light that there was a flaw in the contract document, the council was using criteria to evaluate price which arguably went beyond those which the council published to the tenderers. As a result the council decided to ensure it was fair and transparent to all those involved in the process and they ended the current procurement process and began a new accelerated procurement process."

However, the Evening Standard reports Apcoa's claim to say: “The claimant's case is that the exercise ought to have been (and ought now to be) re-run in a manner that is fair... the claimant claims damages in any event.” Apcoa's claim is that the bidding process itself was at fault and that it should be either awarded the contract or that it should be compensated for loss of profits.

Westminster said it will fight the claim. Kevin Goad, head of commissioning for city management, told the Evening Standard: “As part of the procurement process the council reserves the right not to award a contract and we remain confident this claim will be dismissed.”

The results of the re-run procurement process are expected next month.