Issue - meetings

Report of the Head of Commissioning Support and Business Intelligence

The Cabinet considered the report of the Head of Commissioning Support and Business Intelligence which provided details of the current contractual arrangements and the proposals for the future procurement of Domiciliary Care services in Sefton.

The Leader of the Council asked officers to be timely in the consideration of contract procurement extensions and to avoid extensions of contracts if possible.

Decision Made:

That having given full consideration to all of the information provided in the report, approval be given to the extension of the existing Domiciliary Care contracts for the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018.

Reasons for Decision:

The Council has current Domiciliary Care contracts in place with four Providers which were awarded from 1April 2012 following a competitive tendering exercise. The contracts were for an initial set term of five years and included a provision that they could be extended for a further period up to two years from 1April 2017.

The existing contracts have been extended for an additional twelve month period from 1 April 2017 to 31st March 2018 in order to provide stability of provider for service users, allow sufficient time to develop, trial and review a revised outcome based service model and to conduct a new competitive procurement exercise in order to award new contracts from 1 April 2018 onwards.

Alternative Options Considered and Rejected:

The following options were considered and rejected:

1.    Do not extend existing contracts and conduct procurement exercise for the awarding of new contracts from 1 April 2017 onwards

This option was considered but was not recommended as it would mean either maintaining largely the current service specification/delivery arrangements or implementing changes that are untested. Instead the recommended approach enables us to work with known providers to test a new model/approach before procuring longer term contracts to deliver the new model/approach. In addition, one contracted provider had served notice to terminate the contract early, necessitating the identification of a replacement provider during the current contract term. If the contracts were to terminate in April 2017, service users and care workers would face the concern and disruption of two potential changes in provider/employer within a matter of a few months.

2.    Extend existing contracts for an additional two year period

This was considered but was not recommended as it delays the full open procurement of a new model and possibly the full realisation of benefits from such a model, beyond the 12 months considered necessary.