Member's Briefing 15th December

MEMBERS BRIEFING 147 - 15th December

Contracts for the provision of Care and Support Services

The previous update on the above was provided to members in Briefing 143 on 3 December. It advised of the deferment of a decision on the Council’s tender for Care and Support to allow for an independent evaluation of the tenders.

This brief is intended to provide you with a further update on activity to date and address some concerns which have been raised by members.

Why was the decision on the Care and Support Tender deferred?

New information emerged on Tuesday
1 December, prior to the special Finance and Resources Committee on 3 December which caused officers to review the prospect of legal challenge.

An enquiry had been raised asking whether or not there had been complete separation between price and quality. To ensure that the process was robust, further time was required in order to investigate this. As a result and upon the Leader’s instructions, an independent evaluation of the process has been instructed.

Given the proximity of the special meeting of the Finance and Resources Committee on 3 December, and after consulting with senior officers and legal counsel, my advice to the Council Leader on Wednesday 2 December was to adjourn the special meeting of the Finance and Resources Committee to allow further consideration of a number of issues.

This advice was accepted by the Council Leader who immediately instructed me to obtain an independent evaluation of the tenders.

As members had been advised, tenders were open for acceptance until 5 December 2009. However, for the reasons outlined above, it was felt better to delay the award of contract, and judging the balance of risk, it was clear that the risk of proceeding with the award outweighed that of delaying a decision beyond the tender acceptance dates.

The Director of Finance is writing to all tenderers asking them to keep open their tender submission for an extended period. It is important to recognise that we cannot legally require tenderers to do this.

Communications with service users

On the afternoon of 3 December the Director of Services for Communities contacted the User Group Representatives advising them that the Committee had been adjourned. Letters to service users and to relatives and carers of service users were issued on 4 December which:

· informed them of the deferment of the decision on the award of contract
· advised them of the continuity of their current service provider and
· provided a contact number for enquiries.

Copies of these letters are attached.

Previously, an assurance had been given that all applications for direct payments received by 3 December would be excluded from any contracts pending their assessment. This approach had been recommended to provide a period of stability to allow the transition to new contracts. Since the contract award has been deferred, the Departments of Health and Social Care and Services for Communities have continued to accept and process direct payment applications.

Since 19 November 466 clients have requested a direct payment. 26 applications have been processed in addition to 69 previously processed.

There is a substantial increase in the number of direct payment applications. A decision will need to be taken in due course as to the commerciality of proceeding, bearing in mind the changed circumstances.

What are we doing now?

Utilising the Council’s procurement framework agreement, I expect to appoint Deloitte in the next 24 hours to undertake an independent evaluation of the tender process.

Their remit is to carry out two stages of work:

a) the first stage is to carry out an initial
assessment of the process undertaken; and

b) the second subsequent stage is to assess
the consistency of the approach and the
outcome obtained.

Three other contracts are currently scheduled to be submitted to Finance and Resources Committee in January. These are for:

· care and support for Lochend Housing
· a homelessness housing support service and
· maintaining a home visiting support service.

I intend to ask Deloitte to review these as part of their remit.

The consultants have been asked to report as soon as possible, while ensuring that the remit is thoroughly discharged. With the holiday period imminent, this will mean that the bulk of the work will take place in January. The aim is to be able to report to the Finance and Resources Committee on 21 January but it is not possible to confirm this at this stage.

A number of letters, seeking additional information, have been received from elected members and others. These will be responded to as soon as practicable but it will not be possible to deal with substantive issues until the consultants’ assignment is completed.

A further Members’ Briefing will be issued as soon as is possible.

Tom Aitchison
Chief Executive