Agenda item

(1)   The Chairman welcomed Peter Turner and Lorraine Williamson to the meeting and invited them to outline to the Committee their roles in supporting KCC, and to answer questions from Members of the Committee.

(2)   Lorraine introduced herself and explained that the role of Crossroads EK was to provide respite to family members who were carers. For more than twenty years the service had received grant funded from KCC and Health Authority - which have been consistently rolled over. Recognised the grant funding process has its own set of problems. But commissioning model has a new set of challenges and new ways of working which were not particularly useful to all voluntary agencies, particularly smaller organisations.

(3)  Protracted consultation periods and contract roll over for the last four years have been both harrowing and stressful. Commissioning has brought change but rapid change.

(4)   Commissioning modelling brought some concerns:

·        Tendering process could have very restricted timeframes when introducing a new process and often held over Christmas break.

·        Restricted timeframes affect current working arrangements and meant unable to properly consult with service users before tendering.

·        Tendering process lacked opportunities to demonstrate the value and strengths of services

·        Smaller charities are being encouraged to merge with larger organisations and parts of their quality bespoke work disappearing. 

·        Drive for voluntary agencies to ‘partner up’ - merger or consortia -ignored legalities (i.e. differing areas of benefit) or timeframes to enable merger and tender. Expectation is to complete and compete in a four week time frame. 

·        No recognition that Trustees were volunteers often without the business acumen required to operate as Directors; for example Crossroads have many ex-carers on their board who are rightly concerned of the changes in legality and their responsibilities. As a result many trustees are reluctant to merge with other organisations so organisations are at risk of folding.

·        Call off contract unit cost pitted voluntary sector against the commercial / private sector who could subsidise their tenders / bids to ensure entry into these new business areas.

·        Very complicated for organisations new to contractual and bidding processes.  There is a general lack of knowledge in relation to tender procedures/specifications and very little help from authorities except regarding technical questions.

·        Market events were a waste of time, KCC need to share specification  but primarily seen as an opportunity to gauge your competitors

·        Bidding processes limit organisations ability to demonstrate VFM / added value especially when only have 500 characters on the electronic forms. Cannot show the difference can make – accessing additional income streams, etc.

·        Frameworks not working - i.e. have been on the Children’s Services Framework for over a year with no business opportunities apparent.

(5)    Peter introduced himself – he has been chief executive for last 2.5 years and is a former commissioner of children’s services in Westminster.  He agreed with much of what Lorraine had said that the contractual process can be onerous, time intensive and risky but also wanted to add a different slant.

(6)  Recognised that both the country (UK) and the county (Kent) have financially difficult decisions to make; those decisions will unfortunately pit charity against charity and ultimately there will be winners and losers.

(7)   But the third sector has a choice to bid for contracts - having four ways to raise charitable funds:

                                 I.            Charitable giving  - currently down 17% across the sector

                               II.            Grants - are diminishing and increasingly competitive

                              III.            Statutory funding vs commissioned service provision

                           IV.            Selling products

(8)   As a sector we can work competitively and win contracts from the private sector by using their good (business) practice and competing by proving how what we do which adds value beyond the specification. Have 180,000 UK charities - expectation we all do good things. Now we need to prove it via VFM, social value and quantifying the financial input with outcomes.

(9)    Infrastructure organisations need to enable and support the sector to compete. Currently the sector is not ready, we cannot make comparable measures across the third sector or with private sector competitors. We need to change.

(10)  177,000 carers estimated in Kent, carers organisations between them know about 15-20,000 carers. That means vast majority not getting a service – we need to ensure all carers can benefit from our services which means we need to change to accommodate their needs.

(11)   Working smarter requires investment in IT to demonstrate our costs and measure our outcomes. Contracting with the third sector adding right pieces to the jigsaw = What / How / When:

·        KCC specification

·        Reflected in third sector business plans

·        Performance management systems

·        Demonstrable outcome measures

·        Demonstrable Unit Cost

(12)   Third sector must be able to demonstrate through tendering process social return / additional benefits measures which would enable it to complete with the private sector.

Question – Clearly there is an issue of unit costs vs flexibility of a grant. Can charities compete to deliver bids and tender or should KCC  recognise professional in services but challenged by tendering / bidding processes?

(13)  We choose to compete for contracts. Third sector needs to become more professional and recognise that it is in competition. The harsh reality is we cannot continue to expect financial mechanisms based on ‘we do good things, give us money’.

(14)   We must be able to prove it and evidence how we make a difference. Early intervention does reduce costs but need to prove that it could be done For example 40% of residential care admissions due to family care breakdown.

Question – Professionalization of trustees: to what extent could infrastructure organisations provide the support and help make up the deficit?

(15)  Concerned organisations do not have the expertise themselves but do and can offer low level support. They need additional technical expertise of commissioning modelling, technical wording, bidding processes etc. Procurement training courses provided by purchasing in the expert training.

Question – Should you not be talking to Commissioners?

(16)  Yes, we do but currently very one-sided not reached joint decision making re: specifications.

Question – Some smaller charities exist as larger charities were not working at their local level - how do we maintain that level of specialism?

(17)   It is the choice of individual charities how they use their experience. Jointly, need to look at filling the gaps which may mean not completely squeezing the ability to seek grant funding - as bespoke organisations cease to exist if the localised area grants are removed. It was acknowledged that funds (i.e. small grants of £15K) are needed to help in identifying and support the needs of certain areas.

Question – being blunt KCC does not owe the voluntary sector a living and some organisations appear to have met the challenge by being dynamic and growing from that success?

(18)      Must recognise there are average and below average across all sectors of service provision. We are all in a shake-up situation and better intelligence will ensure over time we have the best systems. But it is dependent on what KCC ultimately wants Still believe there is a place for grants within a commissioning model with the correct modelling.

(19)    The Chairman thanked Lorraine and Peter for helping the Committee with their work and for answering questions from Members.