National Care Service: questions and answers - engagement sessions

Commissioning and Procurement

What does the Bill mean by ethical commissioning?

• Ethical commissioning and ethical procurement will become a cornerstone that the National Care Service will use to shape all commissioning and procurement decision making. An ethical commissioning and procurement approach will ensure full engagement with those who access social care support, those who support people to access social care support, families and friends, unpaid carers, the workforce and providers.
• Ethical standards will ensure we value and recognise the workforce by developing minimum fair work standards, terms and conditions and will contribute to climate resilience/climate change adaptation in future by taking account of the irreversible impacts of climate change.
• The National Care Service approach to ethical commissioning will support the standardisation and implementation of fair work requirements and practices, ensuring these are agreed and set at a national level and delivered locally across the country.
• Our approach to ethical commissioning will be co-designed with partners, the providers and representative users and is reliant on other related work stream areas in the National Care Service program and will be co-designed alongside access to services and their design.

How will transferring commissioning arrangements to a new body protect against contracts being won by poor providers with poorly paid and treated staff delivering sub-standard care?

• The National Care Service will set Ethical Commissioning and Procurement standards. These will include core principles regarding the treatment of those receiving care and those providing that care. Regardless of how commissioned services are secured (e.g. in-house, through grants, through procurements, or through alliances), those standard will be upheld.

Can a care board contract with a provider if they have provided the same contract within the last three years?

• There are already provisions in the procurement rules to consider continuity of care. Other than continuing with existing provisions in procurement legislation which grant public bodies the power to take account of previous poor performance or breaches of contract, there are no plans to prevent incumbent providers from re-contracting to deliver a service.

Will the new National Care Service move to a commissioning service similar to how England have set up clinical commissioning groups?

• Ethical Commissioning and Procurement standards will be co-designed.
• It would be wrong to rule an model in or out from consideration.

Is section 41 of the Bill aimed at reducing the number of profit-making providers in social care?

• Many third sector bodies make profits but require that those profits are reinvested into the organisation.
• The proposals in Section 41 are intended to allow the National Care Service to restrict some competitions to third sector organisations but not prohibit profit.

Is the encouraging of more not-for-profit organisations to tender a means to drive down the cost of care?

• The power to reserve contracts for third sector organisations (which can and often do make profits) is a standard power in European public procurement regimes.
• Third sector organisations have told us that they are often unable to compete with the private sector on the basis of cost. These powers are included in the Bill in order to ensure that, when a service is better provided by the third sector, the National Care Service is are able to ensure third sector organisations can compete effectively with one-another.

If only voluntary organisations can bid for some contracts, what types of contracts are those? How is the decision made? Why, given the Feeley Report was clear about the need to raise the perception of social care support and its professionalization, would you have volunteer organizations delivering some aspects of the services?

• 'Third Sector' does not mean voluntary and nor does it mean unprofessional or amateur – there is no plan to reserve contracts for voluntary organisations.
• The mechanisms for determining which services will be reserved for third sector organisations is yet to be determined. Third sector organisations delivering services will be bound by the same quality and workforce standards as private or public sector organisations.

As services are to be moved out of local authorities and will no longer be bidding to provide services, does that also apply to those who have or intend to set up separate organisations to do this?

• Local authorities and their separate or 'arms-length' organisations will be encouraged to continue to deliver services under the National Care Service.