Western Bay Regional Collaborative Committee

20th November 2015

Agenda Item 5 – RCP Update

Western Bay held a Regional Provider Forum on 11th November, when 5 RCC members (Provider and Landlord reps) were present and 1 SP Officer along with 7 Providers and the RDC. A discussion took place on the RCP and detailed below are the main points arising from the meeting.

All 3 LA’s to work together on the development, reconfiguration etc of services rather than in isolation.

Assumptions should be based on a 20% cut. It was agreed that regardless of the financial situation, there still needs to be a robust plan in place which sets out priorities for the region.

Can Providers work together to deliver solutions possibly within different client groups.

If Providers work in partnership etc why is there a need to go out to tender. Local authorities should look at their priorities and help providers to work better together to meet the regional priorities as an alternative to re-tendering services. It seems that tendering gets in the way of allowing providers to be open and transparent. There are differences of opinion in relation to EU procurement rules and whether these apply or not.

Could specialist services deliver services across all 3 LA’s if there is a need in any locality even though their contract may only be in 1 but no similar service exists in other areas.

Local services where applicable can be commissioned regionally.

Boundaries are always seen as obstacles/barriers by commissioners but Providers are flexible in their approach.

End of year spend plan – what is money being spent on? There needs to be greater clarity on spending per client group/service type. It would be beneficial to see a picture of the different service types and client groups commissioned across the region. (The provider’s name doesn’t need to be known). Bridgend actually saw an increase in the number of people supported despite a decrease in funding last year. There needs to be more clarity on how these figures are being measured. There isn’t a level playing field – look at the Powys model of working as a prime example!

Requirement to identify need to accurately develop services for the future. We haven’t got a good enough system where emerging trends are being identified and shared. We are not proactive in sharing these emerging needs.

De-commissioning may have to be an option in future but we need to understand what are our priorities and why.

This all needs to be developed in conjunction with staff and service users but at present we only have 1 community group for NPT and Bridgend but nothing for Swansea. How are providers doing this as part of any reconfiguration/redesign of services? Having a service user representative on the RCC is unachievable in the short term as there is a lack of capacity and time available to do this. Expecting one person to represent the whole sector is not achievable either! There needs to be a robust, meaningful and sustainable mechanism to feed into the RCC.

Providers were asked to read through the RCP and send through evidence examples to be part of the RCP submission in January.

We are recommending that we follow the following timetable

  • Update on RCP at RCC on 20th November.
  • Providers to submit evidence and information on the RCP by 30th November.
  • Submissions to be collated by Debra and put into an updated document for discussion etc at the RTM on 10th December.
  • Draft RCP to go out to Providers/RCC etc by 17th December for final comments to be received back to Debra by 5th January 2016.
  • Final version to be sent to RCC members by 11th January ready for agreement at RCC on 14th January.