Under the WIDP Contract (Clause 37) the Contractor is responsible for procuring sufficient qualified staff to perform the Services. The language reflects the fact that the Contractor will normally be a special purpose company established to raise finance for the Project. As such it will not employ operational staff itself but will procure operational services via an operations and maintenance sub-contract with a waste management company.
If employees have transferred or could transfer from the Authority under TUPE then under the WIDP Contract, Schedule 20 will apply.
The starting point in the WIDP Contract at Schedule 20 is that there will be no transfer of staff under the TUPE Regulations when the Contractor becomes responsible for providing the Services. The reason for this is that waste projects currently in procurement are likely, for example, to involve new facilities staffed by new employees not previously providing the waste management service for the Authority. Also nowadays the project scope does not tend to include services that would typically involve a TUPE transfer, for example the Authority's transfer stations, recycling collection service or the management of its Household Waste Recycling Centres.
More detailed, alternative drafting is provided in Schedule 20 for those projects that do envisage a transfer of staff under TUPE. TUPE is a very complex process and it is easy to under estimate the scope and extent of the work involved to manage the process. During the Transition Period the Contract Manager should ensure there is sufficient resource allocated to manage the process.