Agenda item
Community Benefits from Health and Social Care Commissioning
Presentation from the CCG attached (Jane Milligan presenting)
Presentation from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (Zamil Ahmed presenting)(to follow)
The report summarises the Council’s and the CCG’s approach to ensuring community benefits from the health commissioning which it undertakes.
Minutes:
Jane Milligan (Chief Officer, Clinical Commissioning Group), was in attendance to present her report in relation to the Community Benefits from Health & Social Care Commissioning. She reported the following –
· the Public Service (Social Value) Act 2012 dictates that organisations who commission, or buy, public services are required to consider securing added economic, social or environmental benefits for their local area.
· CCG is developing its approach to implementing the Public Service Act 2012 as part of its ‘Developing Our Commissioning Strategic Priorities (DSCP) programme.
· the Act is about considering how the services commissioned and procured can improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of Tower Hamlets and the broader benefits to the community from a commissioning process over and above the direct purchasing of goods, services and outcomes.
· CCG is currently an active member of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment reference group, a sub-group of the Health and Wellbeing Board led by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and actively contributes to the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment process by embedding the principle of needs assessment in the commissioning and procurement cycle.
· the CCG is also committed to acting on the recommendations of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment factsheets where practical and appropriate and ensures reporting on these findings and their implementation through its governance structure.
· investment to support broader benefits includes –
o Social prescribing
o Advocacy
o Welfare advice services
o Investment in the development of the voluntary sector.
Zamil Ahmed (Head of Procurement), also presented a report in relation to the Employment and Community Benefits for Tower Hamlets Residents and reported the following –
· the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 requires to consider how the services to be procured may improve the social, environmental and economic wellbeing of the area.
· the Act applies to public services contract and framework agreements to which Public Contracts Regulation apply.
· the Act applies to pre-procurement stage:
o Service user consultation
o Specification development
o Prior to formal publication of contract notice and or expression of interests
· the approach is to -
o embed the principles into the Council’s Procurement Policies and Procedures
o Local Employment and Community Benefits clauses to be included as standard in all relevant contracts above £100k and considered on below £100.
o Market Engagement/Contract Weighting/Employment and Community Benefits Schedule.
· these approaches have already been recognised through the 3 key National Awards –
o National Go Awards
o London Borough Awards
o SOPO Awards
· Employment and Community Benefits
o Category A – Employment activities
o Category B – Supply Chain Activities
o Category C – Other Activities
· the Categories are adapted to suit the subject matter of the contract i.e. a social care contract cannot require construction jobs.
Members considered the report and commented as follows –
- that it is a lot of public money that is tied into the Health Services, but there doesn’t seem to be any co-ordination or joined up thinking with the approach. There needs to be a plan and leadership to co-ordinate the activity and the spending of the public money;
- That benchmarking should be looked at with either local, regional or national authorities in relation to the procurement aspect, for example, Birmingham that have been known for best practice in this respect;
- that it is all about doing things differently and making an impact and ensuring that resources are monitored properly and experiences and mistakes made elsewhere then become learning opportunities to improve the way things are done; and
- that there is currently a 3rd Sector Strategy being consulted on and it was a good opportunity to get involved
It was noted that commissioning is working well, but there are some gaps that exist and the team are working toward filling those gaps.
Zamil Ahmed (Head of Procurement) commented that an Annual Procurement Report was being submitted to Cabinet for accountability.
Somen Banerjee (Interim Director of Public Health), stated that it should be built into the procurement process of the Council in order that it changes the thinking of how and why things are being done.
RESOLVED THAT –
1. The presentations and the reports be noted.
2. Officers look into benchmarking the services with other authorities, locally, regionally and nationally e.g. Birmingham.
3. Officers look into the current 3rd Sector Strategy being consulted on and ways to feed into the strategy.
Supporting documents:
- HSP Cover Report Community Benefits (CCG), item 3.3 PDF 45 KB
- Commuity benefits from health and social care commissioning - CCG (2), item 3.3 PDF 269 KB
- Health and Scrutiny panel_Social Value Act_ 09122015v2.1, item 3.3 PDF 473 KB