The CIty of Cardiff Council Sports, Leisure and Culture Services - Cultural Venues

Descriptions

Cardiff the Capital City of Wales, is home to St David’s Hall, which is the National Concert Hall and Conference Centre of Wales; and the New Theatre, a major component of the theatrical provision for not only Wales but for the UK as a whole. The City of Cardiff Council is renowned for its commitment to the presentation of quality productions at its venues and, with St David’s Hall, its significance to the overall serious music provision in Wales. The Council recognises that its venues play a fundamental part in ensuring that Cardiff residents are able to enjoy a range of differing artistic genres, styles and presentations of commercial and locally generated productions; and both play an integral part of providing a significant proportion of the overall live performance programme for Cardiff.However, the Council is experiencing severe financial pressure on its non-statutory services. As a result it recognises the need to maximise the income potential from its portfolio and to minimise the need for any continuing subsidy whilst ideally keeping the whole of its portfolio open and available for public use.The City of Cardiff Council is therefore seeking proposals for the operation, management and maintenance of both of its venues with the aim of achieving significant reduction in subsidy within the first year of the contract and further reductions in years 2 and 3, and maintaining reductions thereafter.The Council is seeking bids for each of the venues. Whilst bidders may only be interested in bidding for one or either venue the Council is keen to encourage bidders to bid for both as it recognises efficiencies of scale may be an important factor in achieving the objectives of the procurement.It is therefore the intention of the Council to utilise 3 lots for this procurement:Lot One will be St David’s HallLot Two will be New TheatreLot Three will be St David’s Hall and New TheatreThe Council also intends to use a strategy of reducing the number of bidders being required to participate in the dialogue stages to maximise the efficiency of the process for all parties. The Council is therefore intending to take a maximum of six bidders through from PQQ into Competitive Dialogue; a maximum of four bidders to the detailed tender stage and a maximum of two bidders to Final Tender for Lot One and Two. For Lot Three the Council is intending to take a maximum of eight bidders through from PQQ into Competitive Dialogue; a maximum of six bidders to the detailed tender stage and a maximum of four bidders to Final Tender.The contracts being procured are expected to be between 15 and 35 years in length. The Council wants to facilitate the ability for bidders to make bold investment decisions which they may consider necessary to achieve the significantly reduced subsidy position within the first three years. By adopting a longer term approach it is hoped that this will provide the comfort to bidders needing to be assured they have a sufficient operating term over which to amortise their investment.Bidders are recommended to review the report to Cardiff’s Cabinet on the culture and leisure portfolio dated 15th May 2014. As the report makes clear, the procurement must achieve a significant financial improvement for the Council over the position that could be achieved by retaining the facilities with an enhanced in-house position (which will be the default position throughout the procurement process).The Council is looking for proposals that offer long-term benefit and sustainability of each venue to the community of Cardiff and its surrounding areas, in addition to providing a varied arts and cultural performance programme and ensuring the continuation of the classical and serious music programme required to maintain St David’s Hall’s reputation and position as the National Concert Hall of Wales. The Council is committed to facilitating access for everyone to high quality productions and presentations and wishes to promote increased usage of the venues amongst all age groups and build on the work already undertaken by the in house Community and Education team.The Council considers that this is a contract for Part B services under the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 as amended ('the Regulations') or a service concession contract that falls outside of the scope of the Regulations. Consequently this is a voluntary notice and the Council is not bound by many of the formalities of the Regulations and reserves the right to use such flexibilities in this procurement process.It is expected that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 as amended ("TUPE") will apply to the award of this contract and that staff may transfer to an incoming provider. Bidders are expected to seek independent legal advice on the application of TUPE in these arrangements.The Council reserves the right not to award the opportunity or to award only part of the opportunity described in this notice or to vary the final configuration and content of the opportunity.Welsh Language Standards will be applicable throughout the term of the contract.NOTE: To register your interest in this notice and obtain any additional information please visit the Sell2Wales Web Site at http://www.sell2wales.gov.uk/Search/Search_Switch.aspx?ID=19833.