Leeds City Council’s Public Private Partnership Unit

How an innovative multi-project approach and a strong legal team put Leeds City Council at the forefront of public procurement, closing multiple projects and winning supporters in Government

Nick Maltby has recently joined Bircham Dyson Bell LLP as its Head of Projects (Commercial). For the period 2004 – 2009 he was client relationship partner for Leeds City Council’s Public Private Partnership programme, led by David Outram, Chief Officer. This case study looks at what adviser partnering can achieve and the benefits it delivered.

Background

Leeds City Council appointed DLA Piper as its exclusive legal adviser in early 2003. At this time the Council had only closed two schools PFI projects (both with Eversheds): the £7m Cardinal Heenan PFI project, a single VA school, in 1999; and the £45m Leeds 7 Schools PFI project in 2001. The Council was also in the middle of what would become a near five-year procurement process, with Addleshaws, for the Swarcliffe Social housing project. The Council had learned lessons from these procurements, but there was little to indicate how successful the next five years would be in terms of closing projects, nor how Leeds would stand out from the mass of local authority procuring bodies.  To read more please click here.