The County of Brant is located in Southwestern Ontario about 30km west of Hamilton and is predominantly a rural municipality with a 40% urban mix. Brant occupies approximately 850 km2 surrounding the City of Brantford and services a population of about 31,000 in 14,354 single family and 550 multi-family residences.
The County’s last Request for Proposal (RFP) was released in 2007. County staff recognized that, while adequate at the time, developing an RFP with additional detail and current industry language was more likely to attract competitive bids.
How they did it
Brant submitted an application to CIF for funding to assist with the preparation of the Blue Box related aspects of their RFP and following approval, a consultant was contracted to write the RFP which was reviewed by CIF staff prior to release.
The RFP was released on December 1, 2016 and closed January 27, 2017. Four proposals were received and evaluated under a best practices two envelope scoring procedure.
County Council awarded PW-RFP-16-12 Solid Waste Collection and Recycling Processing to Halton Recycling Ltd. dba Emterra Environmental for the period of November 1, 2017 to October 31, 2024.
The good news
The new contract price will be $257 per tonne resulting in a $117 per tonne saving. This is a great result for the taxpayers of the County calculated to be about $250,000 annually.
The cost saving is especially notable because it is in addition to a service level change to weekly recycling collection which typically would have resulted in a cost increase.
Learnings
To seek public input during their Service Review, the County organized three public information sessions, each located in a different area and also posted an online survey. To notify the public of the sessions, advertisements were placed in local newspapers, on the County Website, Facebook, Twitter and through the County’s MyWaste App. A total of 31 people attended the sessions and 144 people completed the online survey.
Interestingly, the online survey produced more results than the public sessions. Overall, public engagement is typically difficult to obtain but the results in Brant County suggest online methods are now more effective at reaching out to a broader audience and less expensive.
For many years CIF has been assisting municipalities with their RFP’s and it’s now well proven that municipalities can achieve tangible benefits from experienced professional help and a standardized approach to the development of RFP’s and tenders. View the synopsis or full report.
Sometimes, just a fresh set of eyes and a few comments made in the right spot at the right time can make big a difference to the end results and save you hours of work up front. We encourage municipal staff to contact CIF to review your draft RFP whether or not an REOI application has been made.
Contact CIF Staff
CIF staff is always ready to help. Please contact any member of the team to discuss your issues and questions.