Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence.

There were no declarations of interest.

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, questions to the Chairman of this Sub-Committee must be received in writing 4 working days before the date of the meeting.  Therefore please ensure questions are received by the Democratic Services Team by 5.00pm on 31^st January 2018.

No questions had been received.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 30^th November 2017 be agreed as a correct record.

CSD 18017

The Committee noted the matter that had arisen in connection with minute 88 from the previous meeting. This had highlighted the extra work that had been undertaken by some staff members who had been working on the Contracts Database. It had been suggested previously that the staff concerned could be considered to be rewarded with vouchers because of their hard work.

It was confirmed at the meeting that two staff members had received letters of thanks, and that they would receive vouchers during June 2018.

A Member highlighted the mention in the Work Programme that at the meeting in March 2018, the Committee would be examining the content of a good contract.  He requested that a copy of the said contract could be supplied in plenty of time to members of the Committee. 

RESOLVED that the Matters Arising report is noted.

CEO1637

The Committee was presented with a report which provided an overview of the Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Strategy for 2014—2018. The report had been written by Daniel Taegtmeyer, (Head of Integrated Commissioning and Transformation--Bromley CCG). Attending alongside to present the report and answer questions was Mark Cheung (Chief Financial Officer--BCCG) and Ade Adetosoye, OBE (LBB Deputy Chief Executive and LBB Executive Director of Education, Care and Health). 

The Committee was asked to review the overview of emotional wellbeing and mental health services in Bromley and to note the achievements to date.

Members were briefed that it was the aim of joint partnership working between the CCG and LBB to develop a local plan to adequately cater for the emotional health and well-being of children and young people in the borough. Interventions were required that would support the aims of ‘Future in Mind’ and also the ‘Five Year Forward View for Mental Health Challenge’.

The Chairman stated that he was not convinced that the submitted report was what he had expected. His interest was primarily with the mechanics of the contracts. He said that some contracts did not originate with LBB, and the Committee was seeking a better understanding of how these contracts were drafted, their content, how they could be managed and monitored etc., as well as governance and liability issues. He felt that in this respect, the report was ‘woolly’. As LBB was likely to become more involved with co-working and joint contracts with the CCG going forward, the Committee was seeking a better understanding of the contracts. 

Mr Adetosoye commenced by explaining that at the previous meeting of the Committee, details had been provided of the growing relationship between the CGG and LBB, along with the expected direction of travel. The purpose of the current report was to outline several key strands in the strategic plan for joint working and commissioning. Some of these were:

·  Commissioning—what services should be commissioned

·  Increased involvement of stakeholders

·  The development of contract monitoring processes

·  Defining and monitoring outcomes and outputs

·  What should be the governance structure—what was the correct process to be adopted for oversight

·  The decision making process

Members were informed that local partnerships now had to develop plans that would increase access to the provision of services, and that as well as increasing access quantitatively, the services should also be better qualitatively. The plans were known as ‘Local Transformation Plans’ and Members were updated concerning progress made with developing these to date. The Plan was being developed over a 5 year period, which commenced in 2015/2016, and over this period it was aimed that an extra 10% capacity would be made available.

Members noted the comprehensive list of strategic ambitions outlined in the report.

Mr Cheung explained that when commissioning, the CCG would be working to national targets set by NHS England.

He explained that when the CCG were looking to commission contracts, they would be considering the following elements:

·  What services should be commissioned  ...  view the full minutes text for item 98.

CEO 1638

The report providing guidance for staff relating to the outsourcing of services, and how to proceed when contracts were due to end, was written and presented by Lesley Moore, Director of Commissioning.

The Director highlighted that if officers followed the Gateway tender process correctly, then most of the guidance written in the report would be followed as a matter of course. The relevant guidance documents were available via the ‘Managers’ Toolkit’.

The Committee were briefed that it was fundamental to have a clearunderstanding of the cost base and what one was hoping to achieve at the onset of the process.

The Director informed the Committee that she had developed detailed training models for both contract management and contract monitoring. She had delivered many training sessions herself, and online training modules were available to those staff that had missed her training sessions.

The Chairman asked if the training was mandatory. It was confirmed that training was now mandatory in the light of audit issues that had been identified around contract management; training and guidance had been issued to make the job easier. She informed the Committee that it was now the case that 56-58 officers had to attend regular commissioning meetings with her. This functioned as a forum where questions and issues could be raised and where officers could speak about lessons learnt from real contracting exercises. The Director was confident that the end result would be a well trained staff group.

The Chairman was pleased with the training that had been put in place. He stated that the most important thing for officers to bear in mind was that they must ask for help in plenty of time if they were getting into difficulties.

The Chairman felt that the biggest risk connected to setting up contracts lay in working out the correct specifications and KPIs. It was mentioned that having too many KPIs would be a problem, and that the ideal number of KPIs would probably be about 8. 

The report stated that if a Scheme Employer was considering outsourcing a function to a contractor and transferring staff under TUPE, it was imperative that they consider their pension and redundancy obligations before going out to tender. The Council’s Pensions Manager would provide a suite of documents for use in tenders, and the Pensions Manager would need to be involved in any discussions with potential contractors. 

Members noted that property issues would also need to be taken into account. Consideration would need to be applied to where staff would be based, and other issues like who would be responsible for site maintenance and site insurance.

The final matter to be considered was that of the specification. It was important that the specification of the contract was clearly understood and agreed by both parties. The contract specification should allow for continuous improvement, and ongoing discussions were important.

A Member asked that if the current training and guidance had been available previously, would LBB have experienced the same problems with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 99.

The verbal update on Change Control Notices was provided by the Director of Environment—Dan Jones.

The Director provided an update with respect to the waste contract.

LBB had been working with the contractor to confirm the number and content of the change control notices from the offset of negotiations. The process would be formally concluded when the notices were accepted by the contractor’s legal team - they had been in receipt of the papers for about a week, and it was hoped that everything would be signed off shortly. A Deed of Variation had been drafted by LBB Legal Services and would overarch the CCNs.

A Member enquired if the change control notice document was just one large document that incorporated all of the change control notices, or were the change control documents treated as individual entities. It was clarified that each of the changes to the contract warranted a separate change control notice and would have a separate ID. Any change to a contract valued at over £250k was required to be sealed.

A Member asked if the value of the change control notices for the waste contract could be quantified. The Director of Environment responded that this information was not available on the night, but that he could look into the matter if required. The Director of Commissioning stated that there were a number of changes that anticipated savings or costs of different values.

The Chairman asked if the Director of Commissioning could confirm receipt of the completed documents from the contractor at the next meeting.

The Chairman was pleased to see that good corporate processes and controls were in place with respect to change control notices. 

RESOLVED that the update on Change Control Notices is noted, and that the Director of Commissioning confirm receipt of the completed documentation from the contractor at the next meeting.

CSD18018

Members noted the Committee’s Work Programme for 2017-2018.

Members noted that scheduled on the Work Programme for 29^th March was, ‘Page by page examination of a good contract’. The Director of Commissioning suggested that she could supply a typical suite of documents that would normally be used in drafting a contract. It was suggested that the Director liaise with Councillor Wilkins to formalise this and decide on what documents should be supplied.

The Chairman asked that added to the agenda should be a report concerning the Bromley Health Care Community Contract.

It was noted that already on the agenda was an item for ‘Reablement’. Clarification would be required as to whether or not this would still be required in the light of the scrutiny of the BHC contract, as ‘Reablement’ was part of the BHC contract.

RESOLVED that:

1- Councillor Wilkins and the Director of Commissioning agree as to what documents should be provided at the next meeting when the Committee would be examining contract documentation

2- A report on the Bromley Health Care Contract is brought to the March meeting. The report should aim to clarify what went wrong in the contracting process.      

The exempt minutes of the meeting of the Contracts Sub Committee that met on 30^th November 2017 were agreed.