Commissioning and Procurement Plan Consultation Event on 21/11/2016. Presentation followed by consultation with the voluntary and community sector on questions to ask in tendering process re social value

1. Commissioning and Procurement
Plan Consultation Event
21 November 2016
Rachel Baillie, Assistant Director Inclusion, Commissioning and
Procurement

2. Overview
• Welcome – tea/ coffee
• Overview of the Commissioning and Procurement Plan and our
development themes
• Question and answer session
• Workshop on Social Value
• Workshop on market support
• Feedback and summary
• Evaluation form

3. Commissioning and Procurement Plan
Our Commissioning and Procurement Plan is about
making sure that the goods, works and services that
the Council buys each year – and how we go about
buying them – offer the greatest possible contribution
towards our Council priorities
• Fit for purpose (FFP)
• Tackling inequalities (TI)
• Decent neighbourhoods (DN)
• Working City (WC)
The Plan is underpinned by the 4 development
themes in the coloured boxes opposite, and is
ultimately aimed at generating value for city
residents.
Social
Value
Local
MarketsDigital
Contract
Management
Commissioning
and
Procurement
Plan

4. How Commissioning and Procurement works
at the Council
Commissioning and procurement are two sides
of the same ‘value’ coin
• Commissioning involves strategic planning
and analysis, stakeholder engagement, and
developing a service model
• Procurement is the process of externally
purchasing the service which has been
designed during the commissioning stage.
There a number of types of procurement
arrangement which we will outline in the
following slide
• Contract Management underpins this whole
process, ensuring that contracts are working,
delivering value for money and quality
outcomes, while also acting as a feedback
loop into future commissioning phases
Strategic Planning and
Commissioning for Social Value
• Strategic Analysis - including
market, needs, risk, gap and
resource
• Engagement
• Consultation on formed proposals
• Finalise commissioning model
Contract Management
• Confirm roles and reporting
methods/ frequency
• Scheduled quality and
performance data collection
• Contract risk assessment
• Active risk management
• User and stakeholder
intelligence gathering
Procurement
• Determine Procurement Route
Internal Gateways and Decision
Making
• Develop performance measures
• Advertise/ Negotiate Opportunity
• Evaluate
• Award Contract

5. When we use contracts and when we use
grants
• Contracts
All third party spend over £25,000 is managed by Commissioning and Procurement:
We must competitively tender for contracts in the open European market if the total value is above these thresholds:
• Goods and general services £164,176+
• Specific social services £589,148+
• Works £4,104,394+
Below these thresholds, we may chose to competitively procure or negotiate a contract, depending upon the specification
requirements, and the market profile
• Grants
• Funding provided under grant arrangements, as distinct from under contract, is a gift of funds for a specified purpose.
The specified activities are defined by the recipient in their application, rather than the funder. The assumption
underlying a grant is that it is subsidising an activity that the funder considers necessary
• We have an annual grants programme, known as the Newcastle Fund, specifically for Voluntary Community Sector
organisations
• These grants are opened to a bidding process each summer, and successful projects are covered by a grant agreement –
similar to any other contract but proportionately applied
• In addition there are opportunities for organisations to bid for small grants via ward budgets

6. Our development themes

7. Social Value
• Social Value is value that accrues in our local communities,
normally categorised around economic, environmental, or social impact
• It is what city residents say is valuable to them, for example sustainable
employment, a decent place to live, and equal access to a range of quality
services in the local area
• As a public body we need to think about how we can secure wider social,
economic and environmental benefits from the early commissioning stage
• In 2015, the Council collaboratively developed a Social Value Commitment
with partners which set out 5 key principles…

8. Social Value
Think, Buy,
Support
Newcastle
Spending money locally generates value across our supply chain, and effectively delivers it
to local people. For instance, research by the Federation of Small Businesses suggests that
every £1 spent by a local authority with local Small and Medium Enterprises (SME)
generated an additional 63p of benefit for the local economy.
Community
Focussed
We will seek to understand and deliver value that local people recognise. We will not
assume that we know what people in the City want, but instead, we will ensure that we
have mechanisms in place for local people and partners to feedback to us on a regular
basis and use this feedback to shape our practice
Ethical
Leadership
Social Value is not just about CSR or legal obligations, but is integrally linked to our ethics
and beliefs. We will therefore seek to work with businesses that employ high ethical
standards within their practice, and those who want to work to improve their ethical
approach.
Green and
Sustainable
As well as ensuring our own high performance in this area as part of our Climate Change
Commitment , and our commitment to prepare for its impacts we will work with partners
and providers to promote green and sustainable practice in the work that we commission
and procure.
Enabling
Change
Ensuring people understand not only our high level principles, but also what Social Value
might look like in their context and what they might personally do to create it.

9. Social Value - Framework
• As part of our Commissioning and Procurement Plan, we have launched a new
framework for ensuring that Social Value considerations are captured at the
commissioning stage, and are used to influence the ultimate service design/
procurement
Key themes How the Council
will respond
Where this will be incorporated into our process
(Commissioning model, Service Design, Evaluation, Contract
Monitoring)
Think, Buy, Support
Newcastle
Community Focussed
Ethical Leadership
Green and Sustainable
We will try out
this framework in
one of our
workshops later

10. Local Markets
• Part of our Social Value Commitment to invest locally is
predicated on having a strong local marketplace
• We want our local markets to continue to innovate and grow
• 63% of our spend is currently invested in the North East, and 43% of this is
within Newcastle
• To maintain and build on this, we invest in a programme of procurement
support aimed at increasing the competitiveness of local organisations,
including tender readiness via the NEPO Business Club
https://www.nepo.org/suppliers
• We also host contract specific procurement support sessions where the
market requires, and invest in infrastructure support specific to the
Voluntary Community Sector provided by NCVS

11. Local Markets
• Types of procurement support available:
• NEPO Business Club – Includes business surgeries run by B2B North, procurement readiness,
NEPO portal training, access to finance, and more
• NCVS – offers advice and support on bid writing, types of funding and organisational
constitution for VCS organisations in the city
• Council – offers bespoke tender readiness sessions for specific contracts where there is an
identified need in the market
• We want to review how this support is working, and get your
views on whether there are particular gaps and how they could best
be filled
We will have a
workshop to
explore these
questions later

12. Digital development
• For local markets to be able to help shape and plan for future funding
opportunities with the Council, it is important that they get access to the right
information at the right time
• Digital is an increasingly important part of how we communicate with you, and
a whole range of other external stakeholders
• Our Council website and the NEPO tender portal are a key part of this, as well
as our Let’s Talk site where will often consult on future plans
• We are working to improve our external web presence so that you have access
to the information you need to actively engage with the Council’s
Commissioning and Procurement process
• To do this, we need to get your views on how things currently work, and how
they could be improved
• On the next slide, we have outlined what you can currently find online, and
where

13. Where you can find information
• Commissioning and Procurement Plan and policy documents
e.g. Social Value commitment
• Market Position Statements
• Provider protocols and quality monitoring information
• Commissioning Intentions, register of expiring contracts and
quarterly contract awards
• Newcastle Fund
• Forward Plan, decisions, and live consultations (Let’s Talk)
NEPO Portal https://www.nepo.org/
• Live contract register
• Live contract opportunities
• Contract awards
• Market engagement events
• NEPO Business Club
We want to know what you think
Is there information missing? If
so, what?
Have you used our web pages
before? How easy is it to find
what you need?
Leave us your comments on the
flipchart
Council Website https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/business/tenders-contracts-and-procurement

14. Contract management
• Once a provider is successful in gaining a contract, contract
management is critical to making sure that it is delivering value
for money, and that requirements are being met
• It is also an important part of the contractor/ provider relationship
• We are developing a new contract management toolkit which will apply to all
Council contracts
• The toolkit will introduce a new risk-based methodology for identifying a
proportionate contract management approach on a contract by contract basis
• The toolkit will clarify our approach to determining the frequency and intensity of
contract management, and set a consistent approach for making contract
management roles and responsibilities clear at the start of each contract

15. Contract management
• We will be launching the toolkit by the end of March 2017, and welcome your views on
proportionality
• A separate Newcastle Fund monitoring review is also underway as part of the Newcastle Fund review
 Annual performance information
 Provider meeting by exception
 Managed in line with JCT/ NEC
requirements for works that are
deemed to be minor
 Provider meeting by exception
 Annual performance information
Provider meeting by exception
 6 monthly performance information
 At least 1 desktop review over the life
of the contract for contracts of 2+
years
 Provider meeting by exception
 Managed in line with JCT/ NEC
requirements for works that are
deemed to be intermediate
 Provider meeting by exception
 6 monthly performance information
 At least 1 desktop review over the life
of the contract for contracts of 2+
years
 Provider meeting by exception
 3 monthly performance information
 Annual desktop review and/or sample
check as appropriate
 Provider meeting by exception
 Managed in line with JCT/ NEC
requirements for works that are
deemed to be major
 Provider meeting by exception
 3 monthly performance information
 Annual desktop review and/or sample
check as appropriate
 Annual quality monitoring and
verification visit
 Provider meeting by exception
Low
Medium
High
Goods Works Services
Please leave your
comments on the
Contract
Management
Table

16. How we will measure success
• To make sure that all of this development work is having a positive impact, we have launched a
new set of performance measures to help us understand our impact and performance
• These measures will tell us more about how we are delivering against the themes below
• You will be able to track progress on our Council website
Are providers
delivering in line
with
performance
indicators?
Are providers
achieving or
exceeding our
quality
expectations?
Are
stakeholders
actively
involved in
design, delivery
and
management of
our contracts?
How well is our
SVOI process
delivering the
Council’s Social
Value
Commitment?
How well are
our
Commissioning
and
procurement
processes
fulfilling our
commitments
under the
Voluntary
Sector
Compact?
Is our local
marketplace
becoming more
procurement
ready?
Are we fulfilling
our
management
obligations?
Provider
Performance
Stakeholder
Involvement
Social Value
Voluntary
Sector
Local Markets
Management

17. Questions

18. Workshop 1: Social Value
In groups, work through the Social Value framework in relation to the following
illustrative example…
Example - Family Support Services (1/2)
• The Council are seeking to procure a 5 year contract for Family Support Services
• Family Support Services is made up of three main components:
• Community Family Hub
• Citywide Family Support
• Targeted Services – Youth Support
• It includes a range of services to be delivered in partnership such as: Early Help,
Sure Start, Parenting Programmes, Training and Support
• There is a budget envelope of approximately £5m

19. Workshop 1: Social Value
Example - Family Support Services (2/2)
Required service elements:
• Targeted Sure Start offer for approximately 10,000 children under 5 across
eligible areas of the city
• Intensive whole family working for families with additional needs – c. 202
families at any one time
• Family Support volunteers for approximately 150 families at any one time
Structure:
• The contract should be within 3 geographical locations: West, Central and
East

20. Workshop 1: Social Value
Information is on your tables – in your group, work through the
following questions:
Think, buy,
support
Newcastle
• What benefits would arise if a local organisation was delivering in response to Family Services?
• How will local people benefit (including but not only service/end users – think about the broader community who may
experience employment, environmental and social benefits)?
• What associated opportunities exist to pull down other funding and resources into the city or specific communities?
• What whole system benefits do we expect to accrue as a result of Family Services, and who will benefit from these? If
there are multiple choices, how would we prioritise among them?
Community
Focused
• What geographic or community boundary options are there within Family Services that could influence Social Value?
• Are there any potential community impacts that we should particularly guard against in relation to Family Services?
Green and
Sustainable
What environmental sustainability issues exist within Family Services, for example:
• Relating to service users or customers?
• Relating to staff who will be directly employed in relation to the opportunity?
• Relating to the whole supply chain?
• Relating to the community as a whole?
Ethical
Leadership
What ethical issues exist within Family Services, for example:
• Relating to service users or customers?
• Relating to staff who will be directly employed in relation to the opportunity?
• Relating to the whole supply chain?
• Relating to the community as a whole?

21. Workshop 2: Market support
In groups work through the following questions:
• Were you aware of the market support currently available?
• Have you ever accessed any of the support?
• If yes, was it useful? Could it have been improved?
• If no, is this because you didn’t know about it, or because the support on offer didn’t
seem to fit your needs?
• If we could support you in just one Commissioning and Procurement area,
what would it be?
• What is your preferred way to get market support? E.g. events, online
factsheets, peer support networks?
• Can you point to any areas of best practice that you have seen elsewhere
that you would like us to learn from?

22. Summary and feedback
• Any questions?

23. Thank you!
Contacts
• Rachel Baillie – Assistant Director, Inclusion Commissioning and
Procurement rachel.baillie@newcastle.gov.uk
• Laura Choake – Commissioning Programme Manager
laura.choake@newcastle.gov.uk
Links
• Council Commissioning and Procurement pages
https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/business/tenders-contracts-and-
procurement
• NEPO portal https://www.nepo.org/
• NEPO Business Club https://www.nepo.org/suppliers