Cleaning contract awarded after recall

Townsville City Council has today awarded the contract to clean council’s mainland buildings to Biniris (Aust) Pty Ltd following a tender process undertaken by an independent, external panel.

Biniris has been operating in Townsville for 16 years, employing 40 full-time and 33 part-time staff. The company plans to employ an additional 35 local residents to manage, supervise and carry out the work associated with the new contract.

Biniris also holds current contracts with both Mackay and Rockhampton Regional Council and is the cleaning contractor at JCU Townsville.

Council re-called tenders and convened the panel after complaints of a perceived conflict of interest with one of the tenders when it was originally awarded in June.

A report submitted by the panel to a meeting of full council today detailed the tender evaluation process for each of the 12 tenderers.

Tenders were scored against seven key compliance criteria. The top four ranked companies were then subject to a further clarification and interview process to ensure their eligibility and ability.

Biniris received the highest overall score following assessment of all financial, commercial and criteria and was awarded the contract at a cost of $1,954,547.

Mayor Jenny Hill said she the process highlighted council’s commitment to ensuring decisions were open and transparent and that the community was receiving the best possible value for money.

“All tendering matters are taken extremely seriously,” Cr Hill said. “That is why I took the decision to re-call the original tenders and run the process again externally with a full probity process.

“It also meant we were able to provide more detailed specifications to provide tenderers with a better understanding of the services required, and the panel with more detailed information on elements such as local content for weighting purposes.

“The panel has been extremely thorough in its deliberations and I am confident the contract has been fairly awarded.”