Tendering For Care

The following is an extract from Third Sector Online. The entire article demonstrates the general lack of understanding of the options which are available to organisations if they believe that there is clear and demonstrable evidence of a lack of compliance with the procurement regulations. TfC has written an open letter to ACEVO which sets out the options which exist. These have become well established over the past twelve years, and are used on a regular basis by many organisations. Indeed judgements by the UK courts and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Europe continue to guide the development of the procurement processes on an ongoing basis. The European Commission has recently noted "an increased willingness of UK Part B providers to challenge". Further a number of Local Authorities now have procurement specialist barristers retained to provide advice regarding the process. A new Remedies Directive is expecetd to be published by the EU later in the Autumn which will provide further clarification for organisations wishing to challenge the decisions of the purchasers. For these reasons an organisation can never regard itself as "tender ready" but needs to keep updated as procurement methodology develops. The extract follows, our open letter is attached.

Acevo to probe DWP procurement system

By Paul Jump, Third Sector Online, 17 September 2007

Chief executives body Acevo is to launch an independent enquiry into the Department for Work and Pensions' procurement procedures, after just two out of 16 Pathways to Work contracts announced last week were awarded to sector organisations.

Disability and employment charity the Shaw Trust won Pathways contracts to run employment and health support schemes for people claiming incapacity benefits in Greater Manchester and East & West Norfolk. However, it lost out to private sector firms in another 14 Jobcentre Plus regions, including several it currently serves under existing New Deal arrangements.

Paul Bristow, the trust’s director of corporate communications, said the charity was delighted to have won the two contracts. “Manchester is the second-largest contract, so if you look at the before and after figures, we will serve more clients,” he said.

However he admitted the trust was disappointed to have lost out in the regions and was concerned that its staff were "looked after properly" when they tranferred to the private firms. He said "These are very difficult times for them. Our HR department is liaising with the successful bidders".

Stephen Bubb, chief executive of Acevo, said the sector had been "comprehensively stuffed" by the DWP's procurement practices, with many voluntary organisations having missed out on contracts............................

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Karin Pappenheim is chief executive of disability employment charity Employment Opportunities, which also missed out on a number of Pathways contracts. She said: "Organisations like ours have proved we can generate great results, and we are extremely concerned about the bias shown to the private sector. We need to look into whether the sector is getting a real opportunity to engage."

For the complete article pleasee see Third Sector Online, 17th September 2007. 

TfC first produced a Glossary for Tendering in 2007 in response to requests from customers for a document which explains the common terms used in tendering and procurement. Since publication the Glossary has been downloaded more than 900 times.  In January 2010 we publish an updated version.This should continue to be regarded as "work in progress" as the procurement scene continues to develop.  The January 2010 version of The TfC Public ProcurementGlossary 2010 contains more than 70 headings related to public procurement. The Glossaryis now avaialable for download from the link at the bottom of this page.

An article written by TfC for the Finance Hub in August 2007.

Now updated and published on the TfC website on 6th May 2008.

To read the original article go to:

http://www.financehub.org.uk/uploads/documents/fh_eg_ss_procurement_and_tendering_163.pdf

Workshop Feedback

A high proportion of delegates who have attended our training courses have asked for ongoing information about procurement, and in particular help with tender preparation.

As a Result

Special arrangements have been made, which include reduced fees and a service which is specially tailored to meet the needs of groups of organisations, large charities and companies with a regional structure who want their Regional Managers to be kept up to date.

Group membership has been taken up by a number of organisations. These include:

 National Companies and Charities;

Federations of charities and small businesses

Professional groupings

Voluntary Actions;

CVS

Social Enterprise umbrella bodies

Structure

Each group is organised by a lead body which is responsible for dealing with the Membership, collecting fees, etc. The Group can be for as few as five organisations or as many as twenty five Members.

Group Membership Provides

Weekly updates and information, tenders reviewed either before or after submission and more.

Web Support

 We are able to offer a designated closed, password protected website for each Group. We keep the site up to date with specialist public sector tendering knowledge and information relevant to the group.So that a group of medical service providers might be interested in priorities for NHS and PCT tendering.

Contact us for details and price.

For full details

Download the leaflet - link below

Conttact us on Tel. 01629 57501

Staying Ahead and upDATE

.......are the two highly valued e-journals which have been produced on a weekly basis for Members of TfC.since July 2007 .

Designed to help providers of health, social and medical care, housing associations, RSLs and consultants to stay informed of developments in commissioning, procurement and tendering for public sector contracts, The journals have become an essential tool for those organisations which are tendering for public sector contracts.

They help Subscribers keep up with European and UK Case law, the decisions and policies of purchasers around the country as well as the very latest on what procurement officers are looking for when scoring tenders.

NOW on General Release

- For just £10 per month an annual Subscription costs £120 + VAT = £141 you can book your subscription by downloading and using the attached leaflet.

Since June 2007 TfC has kept its membership updated on a weekly basis regarding the latest news and developments in the world of procurement. We have now produced a "General" version of Staying Ahead which can be downloaded from the link below. In addition to some recent comments which might be of interest to readers we have included some important items which were first published during the first three months of 2008.

These two e-journals are now generally available. please see the section "Staying Ahead" above, under the heading "Information" for further details and our special offer for May 2008 

The Charity Commission recently published a statement in support of its annual economic survey results. In this the Chairman – Dame Suzie Leather predicted that a number of large charities will face a funding precipice by March 2011.The link to the press release is below.

This comment replicates the observation of TfC resuting from our work with large charities. It appears to be the larger charities, those with an annual turnover of more than £65 million, which are having the greatest difficulty in tendering successfully for public sector contracts. Success rates of below 40% are not uncommon.Those which depend on public contracts and are operating at this level, especially if this relates to the re-tendering of existing contracts are already on a slippery slope to financial failure.The main reasons for this state of affairs is that the larg charities tend to continue to depend upon their name and "brand" in tendering. They appear not to understand that tendering is not about size and how they have delivered services in the past Above all else tendering is about three things:

the governance and management of the company or organisation;

the quality of management;

the tender specification

Large charities and companies find it hard to understand that the tender appraisal centres largely on the capacity and capability of the Board to ensure contractual compliance. To a large extent it is the Board and senior management which is being scored. Often this is far too distant from actual contract delivery, with the direct link between the individual contract, senior management and the Baord being unclear. Smaller organisations can therefore win by making these links very clear and distinct. Successful tendering by companies and organisations of all sizes requires a focus on these areas both in the PQQ and the method statement.