RSS feedRising to the challenge – a discussion piece…
Posted by MST on July 8, 2009 | 4 Comments | 
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The increasing use of competitive tendering to procure housing and care and support services is having a significant impact on the sector and it’s no different for MST. New Business Manager, Pamela Sinnott details some of the challenges.
The challenges
Over the last year we have submitted, on average, one tender every three weeks. Each tender requires a considerable amount of input from our central and local delivery teams. While we are often tendering for similar services, local authorities are all seeking to do this in different ways – which often means starting from scratch for
Costing our tenders competitively has also been a challenge and it can be very disheartening to lose good quality services to another provider over cost. There has been a considerable impact on our refugee services where commissioners have chosen generic services in place of specialist support. This can erode the valuable skills and experience of specialist staff and takes away a valid option for service users.
TUPE has been a real challenge and very resource intensive for our HR department. It has also been difficult to manage and maintain good staff morale for out-going staff where the winning provider has not managed TUPE well.
In general local authorities have struggled to manage their tendering timetables and almost all tenders have been delayed in starting or during the process, and in some cases withdrawn entirely. This has had made planning and prioritising very difficult and has been very frustrating at times.
Framework agreements, while providing opportunity, have also presented challenges. Most frameworks are tying us into costs and assessments of quality for up to four years. However, the market and the quality of our services continue to change at a much faster rate.
The benefits
On the plus side, the process of competitive tendering has allowed us to spread our wings and tender for new and innovative services. An example of this is Lambeth PCTs user and carer engagement body (see article ‘a diversity of success’). We’ve also been able to successfully place ourselves on frameworks to provide services in new local authorities.
So, competitive tendering has changed the face of the sector and kept us extremely busy!
If you’d like to respond to this piece, email Pamela at Pamela.Sinnott@mst-online.org.uk
Filed Under: General
Comments (4)
More details please!
What’s TUPE? Something to do with transferring staff?
What are framework agreements?
How will credit crunch affect MST in future? Less commissioner money? Not looking so good?
JefriL, in response to your questions:
What’s TUPE?
TUPE stands for Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment). It is the legislation that protects staff who transfer from one employer to another when the service that they run is transferred. So, if we win a new contract that is already delivered by another company, we would take on that service with the staff that are working on that service, and the staff would retain their existing terms and conditions. Negotiations would have to take place with these staff if we wanted to change their terms and conditions to bring them in line to our own.
What are framework agreements?
Framework agreements, in this context, are effectively shortlists of agencies that are eligible to deliver a range of services in a particular area. When MST bids to be on a framework agreement, it submits full details of its proposed service and a price, and this is assessed by the commissioner (usually a local authority) to determine which agencies are on the framework agreement.
Being on a framework agreement doesn’t mean that we get to deliver a service or hold a contract. The commissioner will usually go through another bidding process each time it wants to actually commission a particular service but only those agencies on the framework agreement can bid.
How will credit crunch affect MST in future?
Yes, the credit crunch will have the effect of reducing government expenditure over the next 3-5 years which will have an impact on local government and the public sector funding; the funding that MST relies on to deliver services. However, the exact effect on MST and the clients that MST serve will be determined by decisions taken by local commissioners and by the ability of MST to win new contracts and services. Clearly we have a role in challenging any reduction of funding to services received by our service users as well as in ensuring that we can deliver services in the most efficient way possible. We have 200+ contracts and work in over 30 local authorities and so the impact will not be immediate and we will have time to react and evolve as the situation changes.
Thanks for that Paul. Much clearer now!
Presumably commissioners are already reacting to the poorer financial climate. Are they just cutting back & going for the lowest bidder in a race for the bottom. Or are they being innovative or seeing it as an opportunity for a rethink? How much can MST influence them to think outside the box?
Sorry, but it is entitled “a discussion piece”!
I welcome the feedback and discussion! I’ll keep responding for now as Pamela is on holiday but as she wrote the discussion piece, she may well want to have her say.
Some commissioners are going for cheap services, others (the majority) are going for value for money; value for money meaning achieving good quality services but delivering it in ways which cut costs. They are often grouping contracts together so contracts are larger which makes it slightly cheaper to deliver. They are also looking for innovative ways of delivering services but are not prescriptive about it. So, if we can show that we are linked into support networks or have other resources in MST/MHP that can benefit the service we are wanting to provide, then that is encouraged.
We developed the mobile working approach (using laptops in floating support services) as a cost-effective and flexible way of delivering services. We are also developing our employment and volunteering approach because service users (and commissioners) want this type of support as part of our one-to-one support services.
Paul Birtill, MST Director of Investment and Development