Issue - meetings

Report ED15073

The Committee considered a report outlining a proposal to expand the scope of the market testing of Education Services to additional services not included in the original bundle of services agreed for market testing by the Council’s Executive at its meeting on 16^th October 2013. 

The recommendation to commence market testing was developed following consideration of the outcomes of a commissioning review undertaken on a range of Education Services as part of the Bromley Commissioning Programme, which aimed to identify future delivery options to assist in the achievement of the Council’s Target Operating Model as a ‘… commissioning organisation, determining who is best placed to deliver high quality services based on local priorities and value for money principles’.  The commissioning review considered the potential to deliver a range of services through either in-house or commissioned external provision as a single bundle of services including Admissions, Education Welfare, Behaviour Services (certain elements only), School Standards, Workforce Development and Governor Services, Early Years and Special Educational Needs (SEN) Inclusion Support. 

It was now proposed to expand the scope of the market testing of Education Services to include strategic management functions, the residual functions of the Behaviour Service following the conversion of the Pupil Referral Unit to academy status, the Special Educational Needs service, including the Specialist Support and Disability Service and pre-school provision at the Phoenix Centre, and Bromley Adult Education (as a separate lot).  Bromley Nursery Provision, Education Finance and Human Resources and Special Educational Needs Transport were not included in the proposed expansion of the scope of the market testing of Education Services.

At its meeting on 16^th October 2013, the Council’s Executive had also agreed the commencement of discussions with relevant schools for a contract for services for the Primary Hearing Impairment Unit and Secondary Deaf Centre.  Following commencement of discussions with service managers and relevant schools, a number of issues had been identified including concerns around entering into separate management arrangements between the Primary Unit, the Secondary Unit and the Sensory Support Service, which would remove the ability to manage resources across the individual service elements in a flexible manner, as well as how the specialist service would operate as an effective service if managed by individual schools.  It had also been identified that the separate management of the three elements of the service would lead to multiple management structures and duplication of costs.  For these reasons it was not considered feasible to enter into separate management arrangements with the relevant schools for the Hearing Impairment Unit provision and it was recommended that the Hearing Impairment Unit provision be included as part of the overall Special Educational Needs (SEN) Inclusion Support service, to be market tested as part of a single bundle of services.

It was emphasised that in conducting a market testing exercise, no assumption was made as to the outcome.  The recommendations following the market testing exercise might be that some or none or the Education service functions being market testing would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13