Purpose

The contract with the current provider ends in
March 2025 and a decision needs to be made if this service should
continue.

Content

That
Cabinet: 
 

1)   
Approves option 2 - the recommissioning,
procurement and implementation of the Core and Carers elements of
the Wiltshire Community Advice and Support Service for a minimum of
five years with the option
to extend for an additional two years with an uplift
mechanism. 

 
2)   
Delegates authority
to the Director of Commissioning in consultation with the
Cabinet Member for Public
Health, Communities, Leisure, and Libraries to award the new contract, including the taken of all necessary
steps and the production of all associated
documentation. 
 

Reason for
Proposals 
 
Option 2 will give
the Council greater consistency of service across the county and
theopportunity for more robust contract
management.  Only tendering for core and carers
reduces the financial risk and pressure to the council if the
grants for the refugee programme and Ukraine support were not
forthcoming in future years or should the team decide
to invest this
money in different services. 
 
A wide range of
council service areas make daily referrals to Wiltshire
Citizens Advice service and it is a service relied on heavily by
Wiltshire residents. Not having this service in place would
place unprecedented demand on council teams, who are not currently resourced to meet this demand and
customers would not receive
as timely as response,
should the service be brought inhouse. 
 
Additionally,
Wiltshire Council does not have Financial Conduct Accreditation
(FCA) or Advice Quality Standard (AQS)
accreditation, which means that it
cannot provide specialist
advice around debt and housing issues. Further
to
this, Wiltshire
Council is not a charity, this prevents bidding on Charity
specific funding which the current provider
uses to bolster services. Not having this service in place would mean
Wiltshire residents would be unable to seek
specialist financial and housing
advice.