City of Edinburgh Tender for Adult Care
Posted on Tuesday 24 November 2009
The recent City of Edinburgh tender for care at home/housing support for people with learning disability, mental health problems, physical disability and hearing impairment has been of significant interest to many in the last few weeks, as well as to CCPS.
This tender is unusual in that it represents a very significant transfer of business to the private sector in areas of care and support where the voluntary sector has a superior track record in terms of quality. It also goes much further than other tenders in reducing the number of providers, leaving only four voluntary organisations (out of 22) working in the city to provide these services. In addition, there have been some very significant public protests about the tender involving large numbers of people using services and their families.
Since the original contracts were issued for tender, a decision on the contract awards was due to have been taken by the Finance and Resources Committee on 27 October. CCPS prepared a briefing for this Committee meeting, which can be accessed here, and via the link on the left hand side of this page. However because of concerns among councillors, the matter was referred to the full council. Subsequently, CCPS issued a further briefing for this meeting, supported on this occasion by SFHA and EVOC, and this is also available by clicking here, or on the relevant link on the left hand side of this page.
The full council met on 19th November and after very lengthy debate and numerous delegations, an amendment was passed, delaying contract award for a further two weeks during which council officials are required to address a range of issues regarding Direct Payments and service quality. There has been press coverage of this in the Scotsman, Times, Herald, Edinburgh Evening News and Community Care magazine. The council has meanwhile been promoting the outcome of the tender in Holyrood magazine and The Scotsman, and together with SFHA, we have written letters to the editor challenging the council's assertions. These should be published shortly.
LATEST NEWS:Subsequent to this, and an attempt by the council’s finance committee to go ahead with the contract awards in spite of the amendment, the Chief Executive of Edinburgh City Council has now decided to put a hold on the tender process to allow independent evaluation to take place, and the proposed meeting of the Finance Committee on 3 December has been adjourned until an updated report can be provided at its next meeting in January. CCPS understands that current service provision for those services affected by the tender, will continue as usual and without interruption. Applications for Direct Payments should also be unaffected and should be processed as usual. CCPS will however continue to keep a watching brief on this issue into the New Year.