Decision details

There is a need to procure time-sensitive, interim capacity to strengthen the Council’s response to supporting businesses in Bury.
The capacity is required to be sourced within a short timescale and the Council does not have the capacity in-house to deliver this work.
It is proposed to appoint Deloitte to deliver this work, in light of the commissions they are currently working on in Bury, as they have a good understanding of Bury’s businesses.
Deloitte will work with Bury Council to create a proactive response to the COVID-19 crisis. There will be a targeting of key businesses within the Borough and an assessment of how national and regional support packages can be best tailored towards their specific needs and requirements. Deloittes will work with Bury Council staff to ensure the staff working in our COVID-19 Business Unit are trained and supported to have the information and know-how to best guide companies. The exercise will use an assessment of the Councils resources and our capacity to deploy them to support the business base.
Advice from procurement is to use the pre-approved MCF2 procurement framework to engage Deloitte. A maximum budget of £35k is proposed to fund the following urgent requirements during April:
Undertake analysis of Bury businesses to establish the main cohorts of business requiring support from the Council. This will involve using information available from public records, Bury Council and other stakeholders engaged with the local economy to identify the “Bury Business Dataset” of businesses in the Bury economy.
Using the information gathered together to identify businesses which Bury Council can target its support. Key factors for consideration will be the business’ alignment with the objectives of Bury Council and whether these businesses are being supported by other organisations, such as the Business Growth Hub.
For the cohorts identified for support set out a “toolkit” of available options to business in attaining support from central government interventions or those of Bury Council. This will be used by “account managers” in reaching out to businesses in the cohort, to guide these businesses to these interventions and possibly assist in their attaining this support.
Understand Bury Council’s core team resource and that available through wider stakeholders (Business Growth Hub etc.) to inform account manager process and role.
Determine the appropriate way to reach out to the businesses in the identified cohorts. This may include central resource available on the “Bury Means Business” website giving general guidance on Covid-19 support for businesses and gathering further information on the needs of businesses in Bury. Using the toolkit developed and resource from Bury Council acting as “account managers” to ensure that this cohort has been contacted and is being guided through attaining support.
Assist Bury Council in determining interventions for local businesses, using results from reaching out to businesses in these cohorts and their feedback on whether other support programmes are sufficient.
Paul Lakin, Director of Regeneration and Capital Growth will be responsible for contract management and there will be a weekly agreement about what will be undertaken each week and the associated costs prior to work commencing. This will be shared with Finance to assist with budget control.
The cost of the work is £35k and will be met from the council’s general reserves.