Agenda item

Councillor Steven Kelly, Cabinet Member for Individuals, introduced the report.

The report provided Members with an overview of the recently concluded domiciliary care tender process for which the top scoring twelve providers were recommended for inclusion in the new framework agreement.

The invitation to tender stated that twelve to fifteen providers would be chosen from the submissions. Following evaluation, the tender panel recommended awarding at the lower end of the range indicated to tenderers, given the impact of personal budget take up on the size of the commissioned homecare market and the need for providers to attract enough business to be sustainable. 

It was explained that the new framework agreement would support the delivery of the personalisation agenda within Adult Social Care and offer greater control over the resources used to provide care. The new specification, to which providers would be held accountable, contains an expectation of a truly personalised service. Providers would be expected to work within enabling methodologies to improve independence and minimise dependency, thus offering opportunities to minimise cost appropriately.

In reaching its decision, members were advised that an Equalities Impact Assessment had been conducted from which it was concluded that there would be no identified adverse impacts.

Reasons for the decision:

1. To ensure the continued delivery of domiciliary care to adults in Havering.

2.  To make arrangements to ensure the delivery of that care under the new framework from January 2013 onwards.

Other options considered:

1. Do nothing.  The current contract arrangements would come to an end and all future domiciliary care packages would need to be procured on an individual (spot purchase) basis.  This was not a practical option and would lead to a potential decrease in quality and value for money.  Furthermore the vetting and monitoring of multiple spot providers on an ongoing basis would require considerably more resources than monitoring an agreed pool of framework providers.

2.   Attempting to extend the current contracts would only offer the Council a short-term solution and would be in contravention of European procurement rules. The latest executive decision to extend the current arrangements had been taken to bridge the time until the new framework contract (which was still being tendered) was in place. The current contracts did not acknowledge many of the legislative changes of the past five years, the introduction of technologies to better manage the domiciliary process and did not offer the opportunity to establish real efficiency savings or allow for flexibility. All of the aforementioned were now seen as essential to deliver on the personalisation agenda.

Cabinet AGREED:

1.                  To approve the 12 providers as listed in Appendix 1 to the report for the provision of domiciliary care services to adults under a framework agreement with the Council.

2.                  To approve the Council entering into a framework agreement with those providers in relation to the provision of domiciliary care services to adults.

3.         To approve the Council from time-to-time and as required entering into service contracts to call-off the services on an individual basis under the framework agreement.