Decision Maker: Corporate Director Children and Young People's Services
Decision status: Recommendations Approved
Is Key decision?: Yes
Is subject to call in?: Yes
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.
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.
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.
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: