Decision details

To consider the report of the Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Social Care seeking approval to award potential providers on the Framework Agreement for Domiciliary Care Services, as soon as possible after shortlisting, in order to implement the contract.

(i)  To approve the award of the contracts which make up the domiciliary care provision to the providers and on the key terms and conditions set out in Confidential Appendices 2a – 2e and 3.

(ii)  To delegate authority to the Director, People, following consultation with the Head of Finance and IT and the Head of Legal & Democratic Services to do anything necessary to give effect to the recommendation above.

1.  Due to its size and importance in terms of meeting service user needs and enabling the city to meet its strategic requirements, it is essential that domiciliary care provision achieves high standards of delivery, quality, and value for money.  Currently the service is variable, not sufficiently flexible to meet increasing demands and relies heavily on spot purchase.  A framework agreement is advantageous because it offers a structured legal framework to contract over a 4 year period.  This provides stability to the successful providers enabling officers to work with them to build capacity within the market. The framework would therefore also provide:

·  Increased flexibility with changes in demand.

·  Support of personalisation and Individual Service Fund (ISF) approaches, thereby creating more choice and control for users.

·  Offers better value for money provision.

2.  Cabinet supported the following recommendations in December 2013:

(i)  To approve the pre-tender considerations and the criteria to be used to evaluate tenders.

(ii)  To delegate authority to the Director, People to invite tenders and evaluate them in accordance with the recommended evaluation criteria.

(iii)  To note that the award of the contract will be considered by Council or Cabinet as appropriate as detailed in the procurement timetable (listed in Section 13 of the December 2013 report).

3.  Following this resolution the domiciliary care tender commenced in 2014 as part of a joint commissioning exercise between Southampton City Clinical Commissioning Group and Southampton City Council. The tender was advertised in May 2014 and the Invitation to Tender (ITT) stage completed in December 2014.  This tender supports the Council and Southampton City Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to improve quality and maximise efficiencies.

1.  Not re-tendering would mean that we are not working within the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules which requires an opportunity to be given to potential providers, to apply to undertake this work.

2.  To undertake a cost and volume contract would not be in line with the personalisation agenda, nor would it provide the flexibility to meet the additional capacity and needs identified.