Agenda item

The Committee are asked to consider the requisition of the Cabinet Decision made on 11 July 2012, in respect of the Approval of Award of Tender for the Reablement Service

The Committee were informed that at its meeting on 11 July, approval was sought from Cabinet to approve the award of a five year contract, following a competitive tender process, for the provision of reablement services to adults, commencing 1 November 2012.

Tenders were received from two bidders referred to as Bidder A and Bidder B.  However Bidder B withdrew from the tender process.

Cabinet agreed to award the contract to Bidder A for a period of five years. It would be for the delivery of a guaranteed block of 1000 hours per week, and up to an additional 250 hours per week as required.

All necessary action would be taken by the Council and by Bidder A, including all actions and communication in relation to the transfer of staff under TUPE, to enable the implementation of the contract from 1 November 2012.

The decision was requisitioned for the following reasons:

1. Insufficient consideration has been given to the options to retain an in-house service.
2. There has been no consultation with service users.
3. In view of the proposal to transfer under the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment regulations (TUPE) to examine why similar savings could not be achieved with an in-house service.
4. To examine the “Tender” arrangements and processes used in identifying the preferred bidder.
5. To consider the outcomes arising from similar service externalisations in other Councils.

A member stated that the decision made by Cabinet affected both staff and the service.  The Service had been initiated in 2007 and had been a benefit to all users and the Council, therefore it was important for the Committee to consider this requisition.

In a recent Department of Health publication entitled “Internal versus External (services) toolkit” it stated that officers should carry out analysis to ensure the service provided is efficient, and if it could be retained in-house.  Concerns were raised that the original report did not demonstrate or give evidence that this had been considered.

A member asked if the current service could be reorganised to prevent the amount of down-time and therefore bring down the cost.  Again concerns were raised that there was no evidence in the report of this being investigated.  Within the report there was mention of the employment of a Contract Monitoring Manager, however there were no costing of this new post, where they would be located and the cost of overheads for this new post.

Officers stated that a number of options were explored, and the option to retain and remodel the in-house service was considered in some detail, drawing on expert advice and national research in this area.  However, this concluded that remodelling the service in-house would not achieve the MTFS savings required of the service.

A member asked about how the externalisation of the service would affect the outcomes of users and if they would they receive the same service, from the same staff at the same level they were used to.  He also enquired whether existing staff would be asked to work within other boroughs if Bidder A had tenders elsewhere.

Officers stated that a lot of effort and consultation had been made to ensure the service was efficient. There had been a reduction in management through in-house staff and the analysis was done in conjunction with colleagues from the Department of Health, and this concluded that the in-house service was performing well but at a high cost.  The intention was to continue to provide a Reablement service. He added that Havering provided approximately 900 contracted hours per week, however this needed to rise to between 1200 and 1500 per week to achieve customer needs and outcomes.  The average age of service users was 80+ with the majority of them becoming independent following support from the service.  The intention was to expand the service to more customers, however this was challenging in the current national financial context and the efficiency needed also to be linked to the Council’s MTFS for medium and long term efficiency.

A member asked if staff had been approached regarding increasing their hours and therefore reducing the amount of down-time.  Officers stated that this proposal was about reducing the costs of the business overall, not about reducing hours of support to individual customers.  The proposal had been extensively market tested.

A member asked about the process for consultation and why a decision was taken not to consult the service users, since national guidelines state that service users should be consulted.  Officers stated that since services users are only in the services for up to 6 weeks, they would have received a consultation on a change which they would not be engaged in.  There would also be no change to the care packages received.  The Council would be the commissioners of the service not the providers, much like the current Homecare service which is provided by the independent sector.

Officers stated that feedback and consultation is gathered from a variety of sources on an ongoing basis.  This includes annual surveys of care customers, from the compliments and complaints the service receives and from people leaving the reablement service.  The common theme from all this consultation is that the majority of users wish to become independent.  The average user was only in the service for an average of 4.1 weeks, where all of their needs are considered.  By expanding the service the needs of more users could be met, with the increase of 900 contract hours to 1250 contract hours.  It was important that the needs and wishes of customers who currently would benefit from the service but could not access it were taken into account as well as those who have previously accessed it.

A member asked why there was only one Bidder for the tender at the end of the process, and why the others had withdrawn. Officers stated that the early feedback of interested parties had raised concerns about the on-costs of Council staff. There was a full analysis done of two bidders, however Bidder B withdrew at the later stage, due to their own reasons.  Therefore Bidder A was awarded the contract.  They had been through the analysis and came out as the best in the end.  Part of the analysis was looking at the experience they had in other places, which they met.  The evaluation panel was robust and included a GP from the CCG.

The Committee asked how officers knew that the right company had been selected.  Officers stated that although this was a developing market the evaluation process was a robust one.  Bidder A were a well established company providing care and support to a large number of customers in a range of services from registered homes to floating care and support.  Bidder A was also running a pilot in reablement elsewhere.  Members raised concerns that the service was important to the users and therefore a good track record in TUPE and service outcomes was essential.  Officers stated that reablement was a fairly new concept and therefore no one had 20 years experience. The interview and evaluation process showed that Bidder A had a good customer focus and were outcome focussed.

A member asked about the make up of the evaluation panel and why members of staff were not included on the panel. Officers stated that the panel operated within the standard evaluation framework for such panels, and included care management, commissioners, a health professional and other relevant staff.  It is not Council’s practice to include front line staff who may be the subject of a TUPE process arising from such an evaluation, to be included in the evaluation panel.  The trade unions had participated in meetings within the short listed tenderers at an earlier stage in the process and would be involved in the formal TUPE consultation process.

The Committee asked about a “get-out” clause in the contract should anything go wrong.  Officers were confident that the evaluation process was a rigorous one, but that of course all contracts had a degree of risk.  They were confident that the Bidder had demonstrated they could move the service forward in order to expand the contract hours. Obviously if there were any issues then the organisation would have to look at alternatives. Monitoring would start from the time the contract starts, and monitoring of performance would be reported to the Individuals Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

A member raised concerns about Bidder A given that there had been incidents in the past where staff had been “TUPE’D” across and then their contracts were changed.  This had resulted in Employment Tribunals.  Officers stated that it was difficult to comment on these issues without further evidence.  However, they would explore these matters further with Bidder A.  The legal position however was that companies could not just simply change the terms and conditions of staff who were TUPE’D over without undertaking a formal consultation process with them. This would involve consultation with the relevant staff trade unions. The contract was for a five year term.

The Chairman allowed a spokesperson from the public present at the meeting to speak.  The member of public stated that she, together with others present, was a member of staff in the service, she added that all service users are encouraged to fill in a survey about the service provided at the end of their reablement care.  These compliment the service received.  The staff did not want to take this change lightly hence the large turnout at this meeting.  Staff build up a good relationship with clients, and have concerns about how the changes will affect them as well as the users of the service.  Given the large cross-section of staff within the service there may come a time when they would need to use the services and would wish to see this kept in-house.

A member stated that they felt the decision to award the contract should be postponed until this can be looked at again given that the Government had indicated that Health money for reablement would be given to Social Services and so that any concerns raised by staff, or from this meeting could be investigated.

After further discussions, the matter was put to a vote.

The proposal that the requisition be upheld (and therefore the matter be referred back to Cabinet for further consideration) was LOST (by 3 votes to 2), and it was therefore RESOLVED:

            That the requisition of the Cabinet decision held on 11 July 2012 not be upheld.

The voting was as follows:

Councillors Alexander and Barrett voted in favour of upholding the requisition

Councillors Brice-Thompson, Galpin and Thompson voted against upholding the requisition

Councillor Wells abstained