Joint Improvement Team and Scottish Procurement Directorate
Social Care Procurement Programme
Newsletter
Programme and Guidance
The Joint Improvement Team and Scottish Government’s Procurement Directorate are jointly leading the preparation of guidance and good practice materials on social care procurement. The guidance will be informed by a programme of activity around social care procurement which began in April 2009 and will run into Autumn 2009. The programme is intended to ensure that the final Guidance will have been developed in partnership with Local Authorities, Service Providers, Service Users and Carers and Regulators.
Why produce the Guidance?
All local authorities in Scotland engage in social care procurement and this involves a range of activities including market analysis, tendering and re-tendering, and contracting for social care services. There are issues of policy, procedure and practice in relation to all of these activities, and concerns that there is little common information from which local authorities can draw. Service Users and their Carers have also identified the difficulties they have faced as a result of various approaches to the procurement process and have requested clear guidelines which Local Authorities and Service Providers can follow to ensure that they receive appropriate information and their lives are disrupted as little as possible.
Reference Group
A ‘Good Practice in Social Care Procurement Reference Group’ has been established and met in April to discuss and agree the broad programme. This Group has representation from a wide number of stakeholders including COSLA, Service Providers, Local Authorities, Regulators, Service User Groups and Carers Representatives, Scotland Excel and various government departments. This Group will inform the development of the Guidance and will ensure all perspectives on issues the procurement system will be taken into account. The next meeting will be in September 2009. Minutes of the Reference Group and other papers can be found at:
http://www.jitscotland.org.uk/action-areas/commissioning/procurement/
Service User and Carer Involvement
An initial meeting has been held with the Learning Disability Alliance, which particularly highlighted the impact on service users, carers and staff of the tendering process. The LDA has also provided material in which other service users present their views on the procurement process. Discussions have also been held with the Princess Royal Trust for Carers. It is planned to take draft material out for consultation with service users and carers in the autumn of this year, and to consider how to make final guidance and other material accessible to service users and carers.
Local Meetings
A number of meetings will be held in particular Local Authority areas – Edinburgh City, Falkirk, Glasgow City, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Perth and Kinross and Renfrewshire. These visits will include meetings with Local Authority staff involved in the social care procurement process, and separate meetings with providers who provide services there. The visits are designed to explore procurement issues and identify good practice and to provide the programme with information on the critical areas on which guidance is required.
Survey
A survey requesting information on current practice in procurement has been sent to each of the 32 Local Authorities and a range of service providers in both the voluntary and private sectors. The purpose of the survey is similar to that of the local meetings and is to enable local authorities and service providers to provide an open account of current practice, including how they exercise discretion within the procurement process. The survey is also intended as a means of identifying good practice and information on the critical areas on which guidance is required. .
Links to other areas of work
Commissioning - It is important that social care procurement is carried out properly within the wider commissioning process. The work on procurement is both part of the Joint Improvement Team's commissioning programme, and the Scottish Procurement Directorate’s work to follow up the guidance published in 2008. The programme team is also working with the Social Work Inspection Agency to ensure that the work is compatible with SWIA’s Commissioning Self-Evaluation Guide.
The Local Government and Communities Committee – This Committee of the Scottish Parliament has been considering procurement issues and is expected to reach conclusions shortly. Where appropriate, the JIT/SPD programme will address issues raised by the Committee.
Other procurement developments - The team is also seeking to ensure that account is taken of the work currently underway in relation to procurement policy and practice concerning children's services, criminal justice services, and by Scotland Excel.
Welsh Assembly Government - The Welsh Assembly Government is currently developing guidance on social care procurement and a ‘Procurement Route Planner’. This is based on a model developed by the Institute for Public Care which details the cycle of procurement within a wider cycle of commissioning. The team has met with WAG staff and will be sharing learning throughout the programme.