Councillors Alibor Choudhury, Abdul Asad, Denise Jones, Joshua Peck, John Pierce, and Md. Maium Miah declared an interest in this Agenda item,

as set out in the minutes at item 3 above.

Please note that the order of business was varied by resolution of the OSC earlier in the proceedings in order to allow this item to be considered following Agenda Item 4 “Petitions”, however for ease of reference the deliberations of the OSC, and subsequent decisions taken, are set out below in the order detailed in the agenda. Representations were made by Mike Smith, Chief Executive of Real, in respect of this agenda item, when presenting his petition.

The OSC considered the report “Mayoral Executive Decision ‘Call In’ Decision Log No 063 – “Contract Award – Direct Payment Support Service” comprising of the report considered, and subsequent decision taken, by the Mayor on 11 August 2014 (Mayoral Executive Decision published on 14 August 2014), together with the reasons for “Call In”/ alternative course of action set out in the Call In requisition, signed by Councillors Rachael Saunders, Amy Whitelock Gibbs, Danny Hassell, Helal Uddin and Clare Harrisson, in accordance with the provisions of 4 of the Council’s Constitution (Call In requisition presented 21 August 2014 and declared valid 22 August 2014).

The Chair welcomed: Councillors Rachael Saunders, Clare Harrisson and Danny Hassell, three of five Councillors who had Called In the decision of the Mayor outside Cabinet and also Councillors Alibor Choudhury (Cabinet Member for Resources) and Abdul Asad (Cabinet Member for Health & Adult Services), Ms Deborah Cohen (Service Head Commissioning & Health, ESCW) and  Keith Burns (Programme Director Special Projects – Commissioning & Strategy, ESCW) who were in attendance to respond to the “Call-in”.

Councillors Saunders and Harrisson presented the “Call-in”: summarising the reasons for “calling in” the Mayoral Decision, outlining the key concerns of the “Call-in” Members, and setting out the action sought from the OSC to address these as follows: -

·           Concern expressed that the Mayor proposed to award the contract for the Direct Payment Support Service (DPSS) to an organisation whose bid was approximately half of the expected annual contract value estimated by Officers; and therefore whether a service of an appropriate quality would be provided to users and the sustainability of this. With a big private company bidding so low questions arose as to how such a saving could be made and how it would impact on the service. Often the result was online service delivery or devolving delivery to call centres, with staff on poor conditions.

·           Referencing a number of points set out in the Call In requisition including:

o   That the current contract holder the local user-led organisation of disabled people, Real, employed disabled local residents whereas POhWer the proposed contract holder was not user led.

o   Real had scored more highly on quality than other bidders during the assessment of tenders, but was not to be awarded the contract.

·           Noted that respected advocacy organisations for the disabled community such as  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5

This report was withdrawn from the agenda.

This report was withdrawn from the agenda.