Under the Environmental Protection Act, the provision of a clinical waste collection service is a statutory requirement of the Council as the Waste Collection Authority.
As part of the Council’s Waste and Recycling service there are currently approximately 3500 clinical waste customers who utilise the service per annum. The service is provided at no cost to the households and customer support is managed by the contractor
The current contract for the collection and disposal of household clinical waste is for a total of three years duration and is set to expire on the 31st December 2025 with the incumbent contractor being General Business Holdings (GBH) who are a SME based in Witham, Essex. Current annual contract costs are approximately £40,000 of which Essex County Council contribute towards 30% of these costs to reflect the disposal costs for which as the Waste Disposal Authority they are responsible for.
The procurement process to find a contract from January 2026 onwards was initially commenced in May 2025 supported by the Essex Procurement Partnership and was undertaken in accordance with the Procurement Act 2023.
The contract opportunity was published on Contracts Finder in September 2025 for the provision of a contractor to provide a clinical waste service to commence on 1st January 2026 for a fixed duration of 3 years with no option to extend and therefore would end on 1st January 2029.
The contract term was chosen to align with Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) so that the new Unitary Authority has the timely ability to procure a new contract as part of the larger organisation.
Three bids were received for evaluation, two of which were deemed non-compliant at the ITT stage and the remaining bid, following evaluation, was also deemed non-compliant.
With no compliant bids received, the current contracted service provision is set to expire on 31st January 2025. The timeline required to initiate a new procurement process does not align with the current contract expiry date and will result in the Council not having a service provider in place and will be unable to deliver this statutory service.
The direct award of a six-month contract to the incumbent contractor, on the same terms as existing, will allow for the market and the Authority to refresh for the next round of bids, combined with the Essex Procurement Partnership providing training sessions to bidders on how to comply with the Procurement Act 2023 procedures and requirements.
The incumbent contractor is prepared to enter into a six month contract extension with the Authority at current service costs. This will equate to £24,000, 30% of which will be recouped from Essex County Council.
A decision is required in respect of the decision to exempt this procurement from the requirements in the Procurement Procedure Rules in the Council’s constitution.
The decision is exempted from the Procurement Procedure Rules based on urgency as there is no insufficient time to run the procurement process again before the expiry of the current contract at the end of December 2025.

To agree an exemption from the Council’s Procurement Procedure Rules (on the basis of urgency) and to appoint General Business Holdings to provide clinical waste collection services on a six-month contract running from 1st January 2026 to 30th June 2026

There are no issues related to LGR or devolution associated with this decision. These will be covered as part of the main procurement exercise.