The Overview and Scrutiny Committee received the “Call In” regarding the report on the “New Civic Centre Whitechapel – Procurement Proposal and Programme” that had been considered by the Mayor in Cabinet on 8th April, 2015.

The Committee noted the Call-in requisition stated that:

1.         The decision to agree a packaged development and disposals procured via OJEU raised serious concerns, particularly with regard to cost and timings;

2.         The overall cost of the project raised concerns which it was felt merited full review and thorough scrutiny. The deliverability of this project is also under question, as the Mulberry Place lease ends in 2020, meaning that staff will have to decant by September 2019. This will leave no margin for error and require the project to be delivered precisely on schedule. There is also no clear detail on where council staff will be based in the interim period;

3.         The change to the procurement route for the new Civic Centre was announced last-minute, at the Cabinet meeting itself. This decision was not fully explained and members were not given enough time to adequately consider the implications or address the downsides identified by officers;

4.         The uncertainty over the loss of One Stop Shop and Idea Stores provision is of further concern. The list of disposal sites identified in the report, including the sale of Gladstone Place (the Bow ideas store) and the loss of Southern Grove as a Community Land Trust will have a negative effect on the borough and therefore it merited reconsideration;

5.         Members of the council have also expressed concerns over the sequence of events leading to this decision, whereby the Royal London Hospital building was acquired first – and the service delivery model considered afterwards; and

6.         The Civic Centre Whitechapel project also raised questions over the redevelopment of Roman Road.

As a result of a full and wide ranging discussion on this report the Committee

RESOLVED:

That, given the on-going concerns regarding site selection, cost and deliverability; the lack of cross party support for the project; and the significant change now proposed to the delivery mechanism, the report should be referred back to the Executive with a recommendation that the project should be paused to allow the new Mayor the opportunity of a stop/go review and that in the meantime work should be progressed to find solutions to the concerns raised by members.