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RESOLVED to:
1. 
Agree to
join the established Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) managed by
London Borough of Newham for the provision of Independent Fostering
Agencies.
2. 
Agree to
redirect the funding allocated to the London Care Services (LCS)
Subscription into funding the management fee of the DPS by Newham
(currently £6,300 p.a.
 
Reasons For Decision
 
5.1  The London Borough
of Hackney is seeking agreement to join the London Borough of
Newham DPS for the provision of Independent Fostering Agencies and
Children’s Homes. The DPS was approved by Newham’s
Cabinet in November 2022 and has been live since the 30th of
November 2022. The DPS was established by Newham to ensure all care
arrangements are procured through a quality assured and procurement
compliant process.
 
5.2  This DPS does not
commit the council to any given level of expenditure and there is
no guaranteed level of spend with any of the suppliers admitted to
the DPS.
 
5.3  Note: Applications
to join the DPS will be administered by LB Newham. Call-offs from
the DPS for individual fostering placements will be approved by
relevant officers in line with the scheme of delegation.
 
5.4  London Boroughs of
Waltham Forest, Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge, Havering, Tower
Hamlets, Greenwich and Milton Keynes City Council have also
indicated their intention to join this DPS as they were all
previously subscribing members of London Care
Placements.
 
5.5  None of the above
Local Authorities (other than Newham) have an existing framework or
dynamic purchasing system in place for these contracts and like
Hackney rely solely on spot purchasing for all these
arrangements.
 
Alternative Options (Considered and
Rejected)
 
5.50  Do nothing:
Suppliers could continue to be spot purchased without a DPS, but
there would be a lack of purchasing control and the element of
competition to drive cost efficiencies would not influence the
price of provision. Spot purchasing does not go far enough in
securing better value for money and is time inefficient.
 
5.51  Operate a
standard framework without the use of DPS: This would be a
‘static’ framework, which would not allow new suppliers
to enter the framework throughout its lifetime and would therefore
reduce the flexibility available in the current and proposed
systems.
 
5.52  Hackney
commissions a new framework as a single authority: As referenced in
section 5.8, IFAs are reluctant to join individual authority
frameworks so there is a high chance of market failure. In
addition, this would not support market shaping as a single
authority would have limited influence over the market. Hackney
would also have to allocate resources and funding to commission
this project which would have to be funded from existing, already
stretched budgets. Hackney doesn’t currently have the
resources necessary to manage a DPS so more than likely would
require additional staffing resources to manage this. The length of
time needed to complete a procurement exercise does not meet our
needs in terms of urgency and getting some control over rising
prices since the ending of LCS.
 
5.53  Join another
DPS (eg. Commissioning Alliance):
London Borough of Hackney has considered joining a framework or
consortium with other local authorities for a framework or DPS.
There is an established Dynamic Purchasing Vehicle (DPV) through
the Commissioning Alliance, the cost to join this DPV is
£936k over the lifetime of the DPV and it introduces a new IT
system solution. The fee includes some contract monitoring but at a
strategic level which is not responsive to emergency or individual
level needs so the London Borough of Hackney is not assured that it
will meet our needs. The unit costs for the Commissioning Alliance
DPV are not submitted upfront so it would be more challenging when
planning spend. Furthermore the DPS is not Real Living wage
compliant.
 
5.54  Procure
jointly with East or North London Authorities: Establishing a joint
DPS with our neighbouring authorities can be challenging to
organise as it means multiple authorities investing in the same ICT
solution or joining a new IT system as well as funding and
recruiting a central resource to support the commissioning project.
All of which are likely to cost more than the proposed access fee
for the Newham DPS.
 
5.55  See Section
5.31 Insourcing/Outsourcing considerations within the
report..