|
The Commissioning Process
National Indicators and the Local Area agreement
The local authority is led by the governments National Indicators (NI’s), guidance and initiatives.
This is seen in the more formal strategy of the Local Area Agreement which the local authority negotiates with the Local Government office GO East.
Beds LAA 2008 -2011
In the Local Area Agreement there are 5 themes:
- Growing our economy
- Protecting and enhancing our environment
- Delivering good health and wellbeing
- Raising the aspirations of our children and young people
- Building cohesive and stronger communities.
Bedfordshire completed it LAA in June 08. For more information see:
There are 198 NI’s, 69 of which relate to children and young people:
Of the 69 NI’s 16 are statutory and must be included in the LAA:
The other negotiated NI’s for the C&YP theme will relate to areas that need improvement. The local authority is measured against the indicators.
Children & Young Peoples Plan
The statutory inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie (2003) led the government in 2004 to publish the Green Paper “Every Child Matters”. The Children’s Act of 2004 identified a shared responsibility and the need for effective joint working between agencies and professionals to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
Every Child Matters – the aim is for all children, whatever their background or their circumstances, to have the support they need to: be healthy; stay safe; enjoy and achieve; make a positive contribution and achieve economic wellbeing. The government have produced a children’s plan on how to achieve this goal.
Every local authority must produce a Children and Young People’s Plan. Bedfordshire produced their plan in 2006 which runs for 3 years. It is reviewed on an annual basis.
The plan outlines the priorities for the C & YP Partnership. The Partnership through measurement against NI targets will identify areas for improvement.
In Bedfordshire the Partnership is structured to reflect the Every Child Matters outcome groups. All the 69 NI’s under the C&YP theme are allocated to 1 of the 5 outcome groups. These indicators are performance monitored. Each ECM outcome group develops a work plan which identifies the areas of improvement. The work plans and minutes of all the local authority groups are available through the Voluntary Organisations Consortium. Copies of minutes and workplans can be requested from the VOC Officer.
Services for children, young people and families fall into 3 categories:
- Universal - for example education, primary health care.
- Targeted – for example drug and alcohol, mental health
- Specialist – for example looked after children, complex health care.
The local authority will purchase some of these services others it will provide in-house. Services may be commissioned on a long term basis (good practice would suggest a contract term of 3 years), block purchase or spot purchase. Purchasing may be through a tender process usually used for larger contracts or through a bidding process.
There are a number of services which are always needed by a local authority for example out of county specialist placements. There will be other services which are purchased to support an identified need, which with targeted intervention may then be reduced.
Commissioning
The C&YPSP is in effect a commissioning board for children’s services. Part of the CYPSP structure is the Joint Commissioning Board.
Reporting to commissioning are the Heads of Services who are responsible for the delivery plan of their services. The services are allocated budgets and these can be viewed in the resource envelope.
Bedfordshire County Council Services Leads:
- Peter Wylie, Assistant Director School Standards & Strategy
- Katie Theodore, Head of Early Intervention & Prevention
- Sue Warboys, Assistant Director Social Care
- Glen Denham, Assistant Director Young People
- Wendi Ogle-Welbourn, Head of Commissioning Children’s Services
The Voluntary and Community Sector has the opportunity to bid for contracts which are advertised through various channels including the Beds CC website. To access the website an organisation needs a CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) reference number or description. The CPV codes are important for establishing searches to identify invitations to tender opportunities.
Organisations may also be able to promote a new or innovative service which supports the local authority where the need for improvement has been identified. This will assist the authority to meet its targets.
There may also be a need for local authority involvement in Voluntary and Community Sector bids for funding. This may be in the form of a letter of support, letter of endorsement or match finding. Match funding may be “Benefits in kind” or financial. The Funding Request form is the mechanism for sending a request to the Joint Commissioning Board for consideration.
It is important that the introduction to the Funding Request form is read carefully and where at all possible the relevant sub-group has been engaged in discussions regarding the proposal.
The work plans will help to identify the current drivers for the local authority.
Please contact the VOC Officer for the most relevant CYPSP work plan.
If you have any questions please contact the VOCypf Officer, Linda Bulled, at:
Linda Bulled
VOCypf Officer
Voluntary Organisations for Children, young people & families
43 Bromham Road
Bedford
MK40 2AA
Tel: 01234 354366
Email: linda@voc-ypf.org
|
