Friday, 14 October 2022 – Turning Point
I have no idea who is responsible for managing any of the council’s contracts with its suppliers. Shockingly, for what is ultimately a bureaucracy, the council does not record this. Yet it is my job to monitor and ensure the delivery of social value measures committed in them. But, with a bit of investigation and deduction, and with no help whatsoever from our procurement and legal officers ultimately responsible for overseeing letting and enforcing these contracts, I have managed to find the names of some officers responsible for suppliers and, in turn, who the suppliers are.
Some suppliers have been very responsive and we have arranged some really good social value contributions including financial donations to voluntary community organisations in the borough, volunteering with AgeUK and H&F Foodbank, donating laptops with uploaded Microsoft software to young people leaving local authority care, careers and functional skills education in local schools and offering work experience placements, volunteering expertise to small businesses, including local small businesses in their supply chains, decorating tenants’ council flats and gardens and, my favourite, delivering workshops to us employment advisers on what they look for in CVs and job interviews when they recruit so we can, in turn, provide better advice to job-seekers.
Some of my colleagues, though, are what a Business Analyst would call a “blocker” when it comes to Social Value policy. Why, I don’t really know as I’ve described in Why Do Officers Do It? above. Some have given “why” some thought (for example, see Our Supplier is Angry With Us above). Some are bullied by their suppliers. And some have just buried their heads in the sand and hope that the policy will go away. On one day of sleuthing in May, I emailed the Head of Public Health Commissioning (Adults) asking about the contract-managing of social value KPIs in her contracts. “They are in hand”, was the off-hand and simple response I got, and the only contact I have had with her before or since. Until last Thursday.
Eventually, all contracts have to be renewed or re-tendered or most of what the council does will just come to an end (also see Our Supplier is Angry With Us above). And now is the time for The Drug and Alcohol Wellbeing Service. The Head of Public Health Commissioning emailed me her draft contract award report to the Contract Assurance Board (CAB) for me to add my comments on the implications of the award on Social Value policy. What is she thinking here? The implications are clear both to me and her, surely? Her supplier, Turning Point, didn’t record delivery any social value measures in their last contract and there is, therefore, no reason for CAB to think that they will in this one and, if this point is important to them, and it is because it is the Board’s role to assure contract awards are compliant with the council’s policies, the clue is in the title, then CAB will deny the request to award. These are the obvious implications, and I am bound to write them in her report with the recommendation not to commission them. I email her first, though to make sure, as hugely obvious as it is, that it never was in hand and she didn’t set up her own social value delivery and monitoring service independent of the council’s Social Value Officer, me, that social value was delivered by her contractor and she chose not to tell anyone, and confirm instead that Turning Point didn’t actually deliver anything:
“Hi [Head of Public Health Procurement],
…
“I can see that Turning Point was one of the suppliers commissioned in April last year but I can’t find any record of them having delivered any social value which you say below you are asking them to continue? Do you have a record of social value delivery? I asked you some weeks ago about this and you told me it is in hand.”
She replied,
“Paul, let me speak to contract managers for this contract. I thought they did report to the portal but the last contract was on a DA [a Direct Award of the contract rather than going through a competitive tendering process] too so it may be that they outlined their SV and we manage through contract.”
What? Firstly, we both know, and you know that I know, that you didn’t think that Turning Point reported social value measures delivered on the council’s Social Value Portal, because I told her in May, 13 months after this contract started, that Turning Point had not reported anything on the Portal which is why I asked her what was happening with the contract-management of their social value KPIs. And she told me then it was “in hand”. And what does whether the contract was let as a direct award or competitively tendered have to do with managing the delivery of KPIs in that contract once she has agreed it with someone? Yes, either way, the delivery of social value should be “managed through [the] contract”; it’s called contract-management and it is her responsibility. Reverting to gibberish is always a sure-fire sign for me that someone does not know what they are doing and/or lying. However, while she is conferring with her team of contract managers, there is nothing for me to do or care about here, so I forget about it, my curiosity about what she will get her team to come back to me with will have to wait.
In the meantime, two harassed contract managers from the Parking Team called me on a video call. They had just had a meeting with their contracted bailiffs about new contracts being tendered and the bailiffs are not happy with the requirement for social value. I listened as they recounted how they were ganged up on by a bunch of big bully bailiffs saying that social value policy was discriminatory against smaller bailiff companies which have less capacity to deliver services in addition to what they already do and that they would ensure their Bailiff Trade Association would make a complaint to the council, forcing my colleagues to restart the procurement process from scratch should they dare ask for social value on top of their bailiff service to chase drivers for Parking Charge Notices and the council-sanctioned opportunity to add their own bills to their fine.
“What do we do?”, the Head of Finance for Parking asked me exasperated.
“They will do it!”, the Principal Accountant for Parking added.
Council officers are far too close to their suppliers. Why do they care what the industry body says? Just ignore them; we will purchase whatever we want and it has nothing to do with them what and how. How do these senior officers not know this? I told them, “Discrimination is a good thing. The whole point of a tender process is to discriminate. If one supplier is better at delivering the services we want than the others for whatever reason, including delivering additional social value, then that is what we are trying to discern through the tender exercise. If smaller companies are rubbish at this, that’s their problem, not ours. We have no responsibility to the Bailiff Trade Association and we don’t care about them. All we care about is our residents and the council’s value, written on our laptop desktops, of being ruthlessly financially efficient. What would their complaint be? In fact, we are legally obliged to consider social value. They could challenge the council if we didn’t include it as a requirement. On the other hand, we have no legal obligation to not discriminate between big and small bailiff suppliers; that’s not a thing. Tender the contract with social value and if one of these companies wants the business, then they’re welcome to it. Otherwise, they don’t get a say on our requirements unless they want to make a political campaign to our residents about how beastly we are being to them by asking them to do nice things, but I don’t think they’ll get much sympathy.”
Visibly relieved by the surety of my considered rant, they asked me if I could join another meeting with the bailiffs and “take centre stage” when they ask about social value. This should be interesting.
Today, one of the Public Health contract managers, the Contracts & Performance Officer, emailed me:
“Hi Paul,
“It was agreed that Turning Point would not upload onto the portal until new contracts are in place, [sic] however, they continue to provide social value information within contract management.
“[Contracts & Performance Officer]”
Riiiiight. That’s believable! I think Baldrick may have helped her with this cunning plan to get me to put my name on a report to CAB confirming social value was delivered in their last contract. I replied,
“Can you provide it to me so I can comment on the implications in the report?”
No answer.
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