Decisions

The purpose of this report is to obtain a Delegated Officer Decision to procure a 3^rd party data archiving solution based on confirmed costs, which have been updated following the completion of a procurement process. The procurement process formally commenced in March 2021 having completed required preparation and gaining a Delegated Officer Decision to proceed, which was approved on 29^th September 2020. This further Delegated Officer decision is required prior to contract award as the confirmed cost of the solution is greater than 5% higher than the projected cost estimate in the original Delegated Officer Decision report.

The data archive solution will provide long-term storage of 16 years of historic data held in the council’s corporate system, SAP.  SAP is the system that the council currently uses to manage its business-critical finance, procurement and HR & payroll processes - however it will be replaced by the Unit 4 system in Dec 2021.

The historic SAP data is required to be retained for operational reasons and will be subject to GDPR.  Alternative options to retain the historic data on SAP or migrate it to the new Unit 4 system (the SAP replacement) were rejected by Strategic Programme Board in 2020 because the hardware where the SAP system is installed has reached end of life, and it would be prohibitively expensive to fix;  also, as this legacy data is not required for the day-to-day running of the future organisation, it would be sub-optimal to migrate it to the new Unit 4 system (due to the impact on future storage costs and system performance).

The original business case cost estimate of the data archive project was £414k in total for 5 years (2021/22 – 2025/25).  This was based on high level estimates provided by suppliers informally and was included within the overall Digital Business & Insights full business case, which was approved by Cabinet in July 2020. 

A procurement process was initiated and an invitation to tender (ITT) for the 3^rd party archive solution was issued via a Crown Commercial Services framework to several suppliers.  The successful preferred supplier’s bid was the most affordable and met all mandatory technical requirements.

The new revised data archive project cost is £570k over 5 years, this incorporates the preferred bidder’s pricing estimates, and the latest Surrey infrastructure costs.  The cost is 38% higher than the original business case estimate of £414k because the preferred bidder’s quote is significantly higher compared with the original non-binding informal quote; and the infrastructure costs are higher as the technical delivery costs have been re-estimated now that the chosen solution is known. 

Following Delegated Officer approval, the project will award the contract to the preferred bidder and look to deliver the implementation of the data archiving solution for go-live in Q4 2021/2022. This go-live timing will follow the Unit ERP system go-live in December 2021 and will enable the council to decommission the existing SAP system.

It was AGREED to:-

1.           Proceed with the data archiving project based on new estimated costs of £570k over 5 years. 

2.           Award the contract to the preferred bidder and implement the solution.

On 1st March 2022 the Department for Health & Social Care (DHSC) published details of the ADULT SOCIAL CARE OMICRON SUPPORT FUND.  This was the final specific ASC Covid funding stream.

Surrey County Council (SCC) has received £1m of Omicron Support Fund monies.  Funding was provided so that “Local authorities have discretion to use the funding as needed locally, to support the adult social care sector, including relevant local authority staff, in its COVID-19 response, and in particular increased challenges posed by the Omicron variant”.

The funding was unringfenced and did not have to be spent within a set period.  When the funding was received, the Council was paying out the final allocations of the Infection Control and Testing Fund 3 and Recruitment & Retention Fund round 2 funding streams to ASC providers.  It was agreed therefore that Omicron Support Fund monies would be retained on the balance sheet so they could be utilised to support ASC providers in the early part of the 2022/23 financial year.

As with all previous Covid grant funding streams, the Council consulted with the Surrey Care Association to seek views on the best way to dispense the limited grant funds across Surrey’s broad ASC provider base.  Following this consultation the Adults Leadership Team determined that given this funding stream is unringfenced it would be most appropriate to invite all ASC providers to bid for funds against a set of criteria.  Providers were invited to submit applications for a funding allocation towards:

•The cost of staff sickness in April 2022.

•Hardship payments to pass onto staff members who have suffered loss of earnings due to sickness and/or the need to self-isolate.

•The cost of facilitating safe visiting in April 2022, with the option to submit a claim for the period May-June 2022 as well if funds could accommodate.

•Other cost pressures caused by the pandemic in April 2022, with the option to submit a claim for the period May-June 2022 as well if funds could accommodate.

Due to the limited value of grant funds, a decision was taken to prioritise funding for providers who provide services to residents whose care is funded by the Council.  This was made clear on the application form.

An online form was prepared to gather applications and this form was sent to providers on 20th May 2022 inviting them to apply with a deadline of 10th June 2022.

Applications were received from 165 providers, totalling £3.1m.

It was agreed that SCC would make the full value Practical Support grant available to Surrey’s 11 District & Borough (D&Bs) Councils subject to D&Bs confirming the value of funding required and the actual amount spent to support people self-isolating in their local areas within the terms of grant conditions.

SCC will initially reimburse each D&B for the value of actual eligible expenditure they report to SCC as spent in the period 1^st March 2021 – 30^th June 2021.  SCC will ask D&Bs to then submit a budget plan for the period 1^st July 2021 – 31^st March 2022 and will reimburse each D&B for actual eligible expenditure

reported to SCC as spent against the submitted budget plan on a quarterly basis within this period.  SCC will not make any reimbursements to D&Bs unless they provide a budget return.

If applications for funding received from D&Bs exceed the total value of grant funding remaining after initial reimbursements for the period 1^st March 2021 – 30^th June 2021, then the budget plans submitted for the period 1^st July 2021 – 31^st March 2022 will be adjusted based on each D&B’s population weighted by the Index of Multiple Deprivation for each local authority area to ensure each D&B receives an equitable allocation of grant funding.

SCC will consider if any funding not spent by D&Bs could be used for alternative purposes within the terms of the grant and then return any unspent funding at 2021/22 year end to DHSC.

It was agreed that SCC would utilise the £4.3m of Infection Control Fund round 3 that is due to be received as follows:

Ø  The £2.4m of funding ringfenced for care homes will be allocated to all care homes that comply with the grant conditions on a per registered bed basis.

Ø  The £0.6m of funding ringfenced for community care providers will be allocated to all community care providers that comply with the grant conditions.  Funding will be allocated to home care and extra care housing providers based on the number of FTE care workers they employ to support Surrey residents and to supported living providers based on SCC’s annual expenditure on care packages commissioned with each provider as at the 1^st April 2021.

Ø  The £1.3m of discretionary funding will be allocated to community care providers in addition to the ringfenced amounts paid, as well as to day care and supported housing provides based on applications made for funding.

It was agreed that SCC would utilise the £3.3m of Rapid Testing Fund round 3 that is due to be received as follows:

Ø  The £2.5m of funding ringfenced for care homes will be allocated to all care homes that comply with the grant conditions on a per registered bed basis.

Ø  The £0.8m of discretionary funding will be paid to community care, day care and supported housing providers who confirm they are conducting rapid lateral flow testing and/or PCR testing and apply for funding.  Funding will be allocated to home care and extra care housing providers based on the number of FTE care workers they employ to support Surrey residents and to supported living providers based on SCC’s annual expenditure on care packages commissioned with each provider as at the 1^st April 2021.  Any funds remaining based on responses from community care, day care and supported housing providers will be added to the ringfenced funding for care homes.

All providers have been asked to complete an online form to SCC to confirm they wish to apply for ICF4 and RTF3 funding and that they will comply with the grant conditions.  Funding will only be paid to those providers who complete this online form.  SCC will track compliance in terms of completion of the capacity tracker, with particular attention paid to completion of the fields in relating to levels of Covid vaccination take up amongst care staff and care home residents.  SCC will closely monitor reporting of expenditure by providers and recover funds from any providers who do not comply with grant conditions along with any funds not spent by providers by 30^th September 2021.  SCC will then either repay this funding to DHSC or as has been the case with previous grant cycles seek permission from DHSC to pay unspent monies to providers who have declared higher levels of eligible expenditure than their standard grant allocations.

Surrey County Council (SCC) has a statutory duty to support disabled children, young people and their families. Personal Support is part of the short breaks offer but is a specialist service and is only available following assessment. 

Personal Support is home-based care, primarily used by SCC’s Children with Disabilities team to provide families with respite care (short break), in accordance with their assessed needs. Personal support may also be used to provide other types of support such as emergency or crisis support and support outside the home for children and young people to access and be included in social and leisure actives in their local communities.

The services provided through the new contract will be available to all of the Children’s Services teams and the procurement value reflects this scope.

The new DPS for Personal Support Services will commence on 1^st April 2024 and it will be in place for 3 years, up to 31^st March 2027. There is also an available extension of 2 years taking this to 31^st March 2029.

It was AGREED that:

1. Surrey County Council will join the DPV set up by the Commissioning Alliance to deliver Supported Accommodation Services.         

2. All Call off contracts for individual placements and block contracts via a mini competition made under the DPV will be approved by the Director of Commissioning and/or Head of Service.