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Decision details

Approved provider list for school locality boards across North Yorkshire

Decision Maker: Corporate Director Children and Young People's Services

Decision status: Recommendations Approved

Is Key decision?: Yes

Is subject to call in?: Yes

Purpose:

To approve the procurement of arrangements to support the school locality boards which includes support in relation to inclusion and school improvement across North Yorkshire.

Decision:

To approve the development and procurement of an approved provider framework to support and enable delivery of improvement programmes associated with the five individual Locality Boards. The programmes of services will be agreed with individual Locality Boards within an annual spending programme approval process.

Reasons for the decision:

Since September 2019, the local authority has supported the operation of five locality boards, with a view to those Boards being engaged in the development of service improvement programmes, designed to address key service challenges in their locality and deliver specific and measurable improvements in pupil and school outcomes. The scope of the activity undertaken within these programmes is in relation to School Improvement and Effectiveness, and Inclusion / High Needs.

The value of the annual budget across all five locality boards is £1,021,500, with the value of individual budget allocations reflecting a range of factors pertinent to the degree of school and pupil performance challenge within each locality.

To date, the commissioning of services has been actioned through the completion of individual Best Value assessments by service managers but it is envisaged that there would be significant benefit from the development of an approved provider list.

Alternative options considered:

None - Public procurement law regulates the purchasing by public sector bodies such as the council. The Public Contract Regulations 2015 (PCRs) require public sector bodies to undertake an open, fair and transparent process when awarding contracts above a certain financial threshold. Due to the estimated spend value, circa £1.02million per annum, the commissioning of these services is governed by the PCRs. This requires the council to undertake a competitive process to establish an appropriate mechanism to deliver the services to support the locality boards. The continuation of spot purchase arrangements would be seen as disaggregation of the regulations in order to circumnavigate the rules. Failure to undertake a procurement would therefore represent a risk of legal challenge to the council.

Publication date: 26/05/2021

Date of decision: 25/05/2021

Effective from: 04/06/2021

Accompanying Documents: