Pam Webb, the the VCSE Strategic Lead for Integrated Care at Voluntary Action Swindon, has said that they would help charitable organisations in the town navigate the complex borough council tendering process.
This comes after Swindon Carers Centre (SCC) announced their closure at the start of the week after failing to meet an agreement as part of the procurement process affecting thousands of unpaid carers in the town. Three days later the borough council reached an interim agreement with SCC to keep it open another year whilst they negotiate a new long-term contract.
And then there was the announcement on Thursday that the award-winning Swindon Domestic Abuse Support Service (known as Swindon Women’s Aid), which is celebrating 50 years of service and had been rightly praised by Her Majesty The Queen earlier this year, had failed in its bid to retain the contract to continue providing its services, having fallen foul of the same commissioning and procurement procedure.
Ms Webb said: "The challenges for the Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector around the Public Contract Regulations (PCR) are not new and have existed for many years.
"In Swindon we have seen some additional recent challenges around capacity and experience in the SBC commissioning team, leading to poor quality tendering. These challenges have now been acknowledged and are being addressed. VAS has a meeting with senior council leaders this week to further discuss this.
"The public sector is legally bound to follow the PCR when commissioning services.
"It means that long standing local charities have to go through a time consuming tendering process every few years to win the contract for existing services they deliver.
"Whilst these charities may be excellent at the services they deliver and will have shaped these services around the people they help, they may not be expert writers of tenders.
"It can only take a tiny assumption when writing an answer to a tender question, that the commissioner already knows they deliver something in their service, for them not to mention it, only for them to then lose points on that question in the tender scoring process.
"The commissioner has to be transparent and fair - so if another bidder, even if not local, has written a slightly better tender then they have to award to that bidder, even if in their heart they want to keep the local service.
"What then happens under TUPE, is that the key staff (any working 50% or more on the contract) move to work for the new provider. It's such an inefficient process for everyone.
"A new commissioning framework called the Provider Selection Regime was implemented in January this year for the procurement of health services. Many of the VCSE contracts at locality are funded jointly by the health system and local authority, with the local authority delegated as the commissioner.
"This new PSR regime offers more flexibility in commissioning with a range of direct award options being available to avoid the need to go to competitive tendering. Whilst the VCSE and its work is seen as integral to the new integrated health systems, few of the procurement codes in this new regulation cover the current codes used for health and care contracts commissioned from the VCSE.
"I would describe the current commissioning regime as a perfect storm for the VCSE, and this is a national issue not just a local one.
"VAS is working hard to highlight this both locally and nationally and encourage commissioners to be braver and less risk averse in their commissioning approaches to ensure that these new procurement regulations maximise the valuable contribution the VCSE can make to health and wellbeing.
"VAS, as part of its support to the VCSE will assist any local charity in Swindon with the commissioning process."
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