GLRO16 20 Electrical Services at the Elections Count Centres

1.1. The elections for the Mayor of London and the London Assembly will take place in May 2016. The contract for the e-counting that was in place for the 2012 elections has been extended for these elections.

1.2. The Election count will take place at three venues in London; Alexandra Palace, Excel and Olympia. Each venue is designated as an Election’s Count Centre where there is a need to cover the recharge cost elements of the final connections to the house systems.

1.3. To provide an adequate budget for energy consumption for each count centre venue this is based on an assessment of the installed load provided by DRS within their particular specifications, DRS are the technical partner within the election count organisation known as Intellect. Intellect was procured in 2012 to deliver two elections.

In consultation with DRS we have received a number of replies from the subcontractors where we have established requirements; the scope of works varies between venues

2.2 The count centres will charge for the electricity consumption within their hire rates for the electrical services as quoted, our aim is to have a sum of money available to meet these recharges in the budget we have set a figure of £5,000 for each of the three count centres.

2.3 The count centre sub-contractors have all provided inclusive costs to provide the necessary connections to supply the count including final connections which lay outside of the demised count areas; in anticipating a recharge for these final connections we have set a budget of £3,000 for each of the count centres

2.4 A sum of £30,000 (including a contingency of £6,000) to be set aside to cover any recharge costs arising from DRS, where they have included final connections and energy costs in the their subcontracted electrical works within each count centre.

There is no impact on equality from these arrangements

a) Key risks and issues,

By not providing a budget to cover DRS recharges for electrical supplies the GLA could be legally challenged.

b) Impact assessments and consultations.

If insufficient funds are available to cover any charges arising out of the count centres for electrical installations the costs would need to be met from a general account.

5.1. The expenditure of up to £30,000 (£24,000 explained in 2.2 & 2.3, plus a £6,000 contingency) will be contained within the 2016/17 Elections Budget.

5.2. This budget is to cover; energy and final connection costs at all three count centres (as mentioned in 2.2 and 2.3) and any recharge costs submitted by DRS, for electrical services accrued during the Mayoral Election.

6.1 By section 29 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 the Greater London Returning Officer (“GLRO”) is the person appointed as the proper officer for the purposes of section 35(2C) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (“RotPA”) (returning officer at elections of Mayor and London members). The Mayor and Assembly have appointed the Head of Paid Service as the GLRO as part of his terms and conditions of employment.

6.2 The GLRO is the returning officer for the Mayoral and London Member elections, and constituency returning officers are the returning officers for the election of Constituency Members of the Assembly. The Authority must, under section 36(4B) of RotPA, pay for all expenditure properly incurred by a returning officer in relation to the holding of an Authority election, in so far as it does not, in cases where there is a scale fixed by the Authority, exceed that scale.

6.3 The Authority’s Scheme of Delegation enables the GLRO to incur expenditure for the purposes of the preparation or conduct of any anticipated election as he considers necessary or expedient for that purpose. He is also able to authorise entry into contracts, licences or other instruments, in connection with an anticipated election in accordance with the Authority’s Contracts and Funding Code and Financial Regulations.