Showing posts with label Carley Consult. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carley Consult. Show all posts

Wednesday, 2 June 2010

That meeting

Some news of the meeting between Chris Grayling (with David Freud, the designer of the Work Programme) and the New Deal providers, from the Carley Consult site. It looks like there will be a new tender process in the FND phase 2 areas, while in the phase 1 areas, where it's already operating, the existing contracts will be renegotiated. The government wants interim contracts to tide them over to the full roll-out next year. Each of the current providers will be able to put their views to the ministers in separate meetings.
One paragraph needs some decoding. "There was a strong preference shown for greater collaboration and partnership, with the inclusion of the third sector and smaller providers likely to be a minimum specification requirement, and effectively ending the notion of sole provider delivery models. The needs of an increasingly diverse customer group, with a growing emphasis on customers on health related benefits, underlined the drive to bring together a mixed economy of provider expertise. Indeed, the direction may see traditional prime provider rivals working on a true consortia basis for the first time." I don't see a great deal of difference between that and what exists at the moment; it just means that the prime contractors have to get more smaller organisations on board before they bid.
Apparently the ministers stressed their commitment to payment only for outcomes, and "some providers continue to seek reassurance that such a model will pay in practice".