Violence Against Women and Girls - Independent Strategic Review of Funding and Commissioning of Services: report

Chapter 10 - Commissioning & Tendering

In this chapter we compare commissioning of VAWG services with tendering and provide a model of collaborative commissioning.

A significant concern during the call for evidence was that there is no agreed commissioning framework for local authorities or partnerships to follow. There was also concern about some of what is happening in practice. For example, in many local authorities commissioning sits in housing departments and there is little engagement with specialist violence against women and girls organisations or with the women, children and young people who use their services. Women's Aid organisations often felt the commissioning team did not understand domestic abuse and that local authorities were trying inappropriately to make Women's Aid services fit a housing support model. There was also concern about procurement, especially when price became the overriding factor in a tendering process and contracts were awarded to large generalist organisations rather than specialist, often local, organisations with a gendered understanding of violence against women and girls. It is therefore necessary to take a close look at commissioning and procurement with a view to improvement and reform.

Firstly, however we must be clear about the legislative situation. Tendering for social care contracts, including violence against women and girls services, is only required for contracts valued above £663,540. That figure is specified in the latest regulations, the Public Procurement etc(EU Exit)(Scotland)(Amended)regulations 2020. Those regulations result from the primary legislation, the Procurement (Reform) Scotland Act 2014. There is also Statutory Guidance on the Act which indicates that, when procuring Health and Social Care services, account can be taken of quality, continuity, affordability, availability, comprehensiveness, accessibility, innovation and the needs and involvement of different types of service users. In addition, there are Procurement Equality duties including a duty to report every other year on how procurement policy and activity contributed to achieving the requirements of the Equality Act 2010.

For social care, including violence against women and girls services, anything below the figure of £663,540 can be awarded on a different basis without advertisement and tendering although some local authorities opt to tender even though not required to do so. Moreover some local authorities break down the overall amount for violence against women and girls services into smaller lots, Edinburgh is one example, and put the lots out to tender even though the value of each is below the threshold. Overall the vast majority of violence against women and girls services can be awarded without going out to tender and the requirement to do so only affects a small number of local authorities. That number could be reduced further by amending the Regulations to raise the threshold value. Abolishing the requirement altogether would require amendment to primary legislation, to section 12 of the 2014 Act, to be precise.

For an example of how commissioning can be done in a radically different way without recourse to tendering, it is worth looking at what has been achieved in East Ayrshire local authority, where one member of the Advisory Group was until recently Depute Chief Executive. The local authority believed that it was necessary to use the expertise of the local Women's Aid organisation, and the women who accessed that vital service, in order to build a commissioning framework. The service specification was scrutinised line by line, with East Ayrshire Women's Aid taking a lead role in advising what the service could or could not do. This was then provided to a focus group of women who use the service and considerable time was taken to ensure their views were captured in the service specification. All of the women's views were built into the new contract and work began on responding to their needs even before the new contract had been established. An agreement was made to offer a contract of 3+1+1 years giving five years in total for the service to experience security and continuity. The contract was awarded in April 2022 and is already experiencing tangible results. Testimonials from women and children consistently emphasise the significant impact the service is having in helping them rebuild their lives.

The process demonstrated a real co-productive approach in every aspect of design and delivery and local authority officials fully embraced it. They are confident that the women who use the service and East Ayrshire Women's Aid are driving the service delivery they want and need and that trusted providers can achieve very significant positive change. The local authority has also pointed out alignment of its approach with the findings of the Feeley report around ethical commissioning. Feeley in the Review of Adult Social Care wanted the emphasis to shift from price and competition to collaboration and co-production with commissioners and providers working together along with wider participation of those using the service. We strongly recommend this approach for violence against women and girls services.

One option for collaborative commissioning, practiced to a limited extent already in various local authority areas, is a public social partnership which in this case could involve other specialist organisations as well as Women's Aid and the local authority. The specialist designation is important, in accordance with the Istanbul Convention which distinguishes between general and specialist services and highlights the need for specialist services underpinned by a gendered understanding of violence against women and girls. Such a partnership could comprise members of the Violence against Women Partnership that exists in every local authority area and this could become the commissioning body with full involvement of specialist providers. Putting VAWPs on a statutory footing, as we recommend, would lend weight to such an enhanced role.

In return for a seat at the commissioning table, providers would of course have to be accountable for the quality of their service. Standards are a very important means of ensuring such accountability as well as contributing to consistency, equity and service improvement. There are already various relevant national quality standards (see Chapter 7, Service Standards) and they should be developed further to encompass more service aspects. A focus on the lived experience of those affected by violence against women and girls should be central for monitoring and evaluation as well as the design of services. Exploring different mechanisms of evaluation would also be useful and possibly a programme to help commissioners assess and measure the impact of services. Consideration should also be given to what external checks and possible inspection would be most appropriate for violence against women and girls services, including a Commissioner.

It is not necessary or desirable to be prescriptive in detail here about a new commissioning regime, provided the general direction of travel is clear. Varying local approaches can be tried and tested so that lessons can be learned and best practice disseminated, in line with Christie principles and the focus on place-based policy making. It is in that spirit that we have showcased the good practice in East Ayrshire Council. Similarly it is not necessary to be entirely prescriptive about length of contract here although there are many advantages in having longer contracts than has been traditional, the five years from the City of Edinburgh Council for Edinburgh Women's Aid, renewable for a further five, being an interesting case in point.

It is essential to resource the primary prevention of violence against women and girls and, while action at national level is absolutely indispensable for that, it should also be an integral part of the local commissioning process. As noted in Chapter 6, Prevention, well established prevention programmes such as that of Rape Crisis Scotland should be supported and expanded to involve every secondary school but there also needs to be development and testing of new interventions with rigorous evaluation. As with the commissioning of services, this requires experts in the field to be at the commissioning table and women more widely to be involved in the design and development of interventions.