Decisions

The ‘I Am Greater’ Campaign is one of the GM VRU’s flagship communications and engagement programmes, which focuses on deterring the young people of Greater Manchester from violence.

Over the past 2 years, the GM VRU have worked closely with Hitch Marketing to design and develop new and unique communications and engagement material to continue to develop and promote the ‘I Am Greater’ Campaign, with the purpose of teaching young people to be ‘greater than violence’

The GM VRU is seeking to award Hitch Marketing additional funding to further develop the ‘I am Greater’ campaign through development of a violence themed mural in areas across GM as well as giving YPs padlocks to attach in designated areas to show their commitment to being greater than violence.


The GM VRU are also seeking to use the expertise of Hitch Radio to develop communications content for the GM Navigator Programme
The Greater Manchester Navigator Programme is a youth-focused, violence reduction project based in four Greater Manchester hospitals. The four hospitals involved; Royal Bolton Hospital, Salford Royal Hospital, Manchester Royal Infirmary and Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, treat a high volume of violence related trauma in young people.
The team are based in the hospitals, working with young people age 10-25, helping them to cope and recover from their experience, and assisting with access to local support networks to prevent the potential of further violence

The GM VRU is seeking to award Hitch Marketing to deliver the following services:

Cover the account management costs for the second phase of the ‘I am Greater Campaign’, including school resources and physical displays - £3,850

The purchasing of Locks, stickers, and selfie boards for I am greater physical display of commitment to being greater than violence - £1,844

Payment for an artist to design and develop murals in areas across GM as part of the I Am Greater campaign as well as costings for a film crew to create promotional videos - £8,410

The Development of editable Communications content for the Greater Manchester Navigator Programme - £4,335

Total amount to be awarded to Hitch Marketing - £18,439

Following competition Mitie Care & Custody Ltd emerged as the preferred supplier.

Approval is given to award a contract for Police Custody Healthcare and Forensic Services to Mitie Care & Custody Ltd, for an initial period of 5 years and with the option to extend for a further 2 years. The expected value of the contract over the full 7-year duration is circa £22.91m.

Approval for increased investment in the scheme is sought in line with the strategic objectives of the GMCA to increase the supply of housing in the GM area.

1. To approve a GM Housing Investment Loan Fund loan of £1.670m to Splash Developments Ltd for the construction of 8 houses on a site in Woodhouses, Oldham. This represents an increase of £70k on the loan approved for the scheme by the Combined Authority in July 2020.
2. To delegate authority to the GMCA Treasurer acting in conjunction with the GMCA Monitoring Officer to prepare and effect the necessary legal agreements.

The investment into The Modular Analytics Company Limited (“TMAC”) is in line with the strategic objectives of the business investment strategy and the Local Industrial Strategy and support the key objectives of supporting our globally competitive strengths and strengthening the foundations of our economy. TMAC operates in the Digital & Creative sector.

The Combined Authority gave approval on 29 July 2022 to give delegated authority for the period 30 July 2022 to 29 September 2022 to the Combined Authority Chief Executive and the Combined Authority Treasurer, in consultation with the Portfolio Lead Leader for Investment and Resources, to approve funding requests for projects in the absence of a Combined Authority meeting at the end of August 2022, and approve any urgent variations on amounts and terms for already approved loans.

Any recommendations approved under the delegation will be subject to the usual due diligence processes and will be reported to the Combined Authority at the next available meeting.

a) approve an investment of up to £400,000 into The Modular Analytics Company Limited;

b) delegate authority to the Combined Authority Treasurer and Combined Authority Monitoring Officer to review the due diligence information in respect of the above investment, and, subject to their satisfactory review and agreement of the due diligence information and the overall detailed commercial terms of the investment, to sign off any outstanding conditions, issue final approvals and complete any necessary related documentation in respect of the investment noted above.

GMCA have run a competitive process and the University of Salford (working in partnership with The Christie) submitted the only bid which was scored at 45% (see D3 form for full breakdown)

The bidder was given substantive feedback which included a face-to-face meeting at Churchgate House and was asked to resubmit their response to questions 4, 5, 6 and 7 as well as resubmitting their financial annex with an operating profit of less than 20%. They submitted this response within the timescale provided and the revised responses were re-scored by the same evaluation panel.

Despite the responses to questions 4, 6 and 7 being scored as good or acceptable, there were still issues with the financial value for money, in particular the financial annex around calculations being incorrect, values in different tabs not aligning and a lack of understanding about the progressions aspect of the contract.

As a third and final chance, the bidder was asked to clarify their position on the financial annex and financial value for money response by resubmitting a financial annex and narrative alongside this. We realise that a lot of time and resource has gone into supporting the provider to get their bid to a place where it can be awarded as we recognise the significant value of the activity that will be delivered, both to GM’s AHP workforce and importantly, its service users.

A final response was received by the bidder on 5th September. This has been scored and moderated again and it is felt that there are still some challenges with the financial annex, including some calculations being incorrect and some costs not being attributed for in the correct tabs. Therefore, the decision has been made to make a conditional award offer to the University of Salford, based on a set of conditions being met by them prior to contract award. The conditions are set out in Annex 1.

Following a competitive procurement process using GMCA’s Education Work and Skills Flexible Procurement System, GMCA wishes to conditionally award a £1,199,112 contract to the University of Salford. This is part of the Skills for Growth programme and focuses on skills in the Healthcare (specifically for individuals working in Allied Health Professional roles ) sector in GM.
Delivery is expected to start no later than end of October 2022, enrolments must finish by end of July 2023, and all contract activity and support must conclude by the end of September 2023. Exceptional performance may result in discussions around extension option being implemented.