Archive for June, 2010

Procurement – Member Led Review

June 6, 2010

Back in October I was asked to chair a member led review on how the council buys its goods and services. Today was the day when I presented the report to cabinet. Our report highlighted a number of significant weaknesses in the procurement process and made a number of recommendations on some fairly important issues.

I was please to see that the cabinet report accepted all of our recommendations and planned to implement them faster than we had suggested. As procurement is one of the back office functions being considered for a shared services program with Northamptonshire it was agreed that this report would be a corner stone of procurement policy for the shared services.

A link to the reports can be found here:

http://www2.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/db/council2.nsf/aa0bda2d7d1c4

fb880256c3d004ade3c/915c82c0b941c5ef8025770b004a9f81?OpenDocument

Fulbourn Day Care Center

June 4, 2010

Healthcare Homes Day Care

There has been some confusion around the provision of day care in Fulbourn, Toft and St Neots. Please see the separate briefing sheet for the facts. In order to get to the facts I arranged for Rod Craig, Executive Director (Community and Adult Services) CCC to attend a meeting with the chair of the Parish Council and a member of the community who had raised her concerns with me. I also attended. At the meeting the idea of a CCC supported but community led care service was explored. As a consequence of the meeting Rod Craig is expecting to brief the Full Parish Council ASAP on the issues.

Rod has taken a number of actions:

“Following our meeting four specific work streams have been put in place:

  • Identified a member of staff in the procurement/contracts team – Jenny Brennan
  • Identified a member of staff from the community development team – Wendy Lansdowne
  • Spoken to Stephen Hills from South Cambs District Council. The 2 sheltered housing units mentioned, Holmans Close and Chaplains Close are run by the District and they are about to review all the communal rooms and their usage in the 42 units that they run. The person leading the review will become involved – Tracey Cassidy.

This small team will work with the Parish Council and/or others to urgently explore the feasibility of a co-produced community-run day services provision in Fulbourn and its satellite villages.

  • I have also asked the finance team to identify the total spend on older people services in the community in Fulbourn. This is slightly more complicated than expected but the work is underway.”

What we now need to do is identify how the community and Parish Council may come together with the CCC to explore the feasibility of this idea. We may wish to convene a steering group along the lines of the Windmill Estate steering group.


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