Purpose

The current approach, of authorising each placement by an
exemption report, involves significant officer time and resource,
and the responsibility for approvals sits with the Executive
Director of Corporate Services and S151 Officer, which is not
appropriate as they have no knowledge of the placements made so the
sign off is an ineffective internal control.
 
This report accordingly requests that
authority be delegated the
Executive Director for Adult Services or their delegate (in the
case of placements for adults) the Executive Director for
Children's Services or their delegate (in the case of placements
for children) and signed off by the relevant Head of Finance, who
will assess and comment upon the financial implications and
to make such directly awarded placements, on an interim basis,
while work is undertaken to put in place a longer-term
solution.
 

Reasons for the decision

The exemption process as three stages of sign off and involves
the officer writing the report, obtaining approval from finance,
legal and procurement and eventually from the Executive Director of
Corporate Resources and S151 Officer, and is therefore very labour
intensive, involving time spent by various officers. This existing
process takes time and removes responsibility and accountability
away from budget holders, effectively transferring budgetary
control to the Executive Director of Corporate Resources and S151
Officer. This puts an administration burden on a number of officers
who have had no input to the original process of commissioning the
placement. The number of exemption reports that were raised for
social care placements in 2022/23 financial year was 38 which is
46% of all exemption reports. The total value of those 38 reports
was £3.5m. This number of exemption reports places a large
resource burden on the Council.
 
Approval of the recommendation, as an interim measure, will
reduce the administrative burden of exemptions currently placed on
officers as the Officer’s Decision Notice (ODN) to authorise
each placement, is a quicker and less time intensive process and
will also place responsibility and ownership on the appropriate
budget holders, rather than the Executive Director of Corporate
Services and S151 Officer who as no knowledge of the placement.
 
This will allow relevant stakeholders to explore options in
relation to a longer-term solution.
 

Alternative options considered

The following options were
considered taking into account the associated risks and
benefits:

 

1) Do nothing (continue with existing exemptions process for
placements):

·        

Procurement risk from direct awards

·        

Large number of exemptions creates an administrative
burden.

·        

Exemption process requires sign off by various different
departments with the
Executive Director of Corporate Services and S151 Officer

having final decision/sign off when they have not been involved
with the commissioning and have no knowledge of the
placement.

·        

Final sign-off not with the relevant Directorate who are
commissioning the placements.

 

2) Refer some exemptions to CFO/Director of Legal (as they can
approve exemptions by stepping into any director's shoes
under Part
3, Section 3 para 3.5.1 of the Constitution) – as per 1 above
but with different decision maker:

·        

Procurement risk from direct awards 

·        

Lots of exemptions creates an administrative burden.

·        

Reduces the number of departments’ sign off but as in option
1 still places final sign off on officers who have not been
involved with decision.

 

3) An overarching Cabinet Member Decision
Notice(CMDN) for all
exemptions with individual Officer Decision Notices (ODNs) signed
off by Director: (RECOMMENDED)

·        

Procurement risk from direct awards.

·        

Reduces administrative burden of existing exemption
process.

·        

Recorded on a Care Placement Register – compliant routes
exhausted.

·        

Sign-off responsibility with the appropriate Director who is
commissioning the placement.

·        

Temporary process whilst longer term solution is
explored.

 

4) Change Contract Rules to separate out exemptions process for
social care placements: (To explored as part of review of
CPRs)

·        

Procurement risk from direct awards

·        

No grounds for treating these contracts differently within the CPRs
and it sets a precedent. 

·        

Implies Council authorises direct awards.

·        

Removes scrutiny on these types of contracts.

·        

Reduces officer’s admin burden of exemptions.

 

Our recommendation is that option 3 would be the preferable
solution until a full review of the Contract Procedure Rules has
been undertaken by Officers and all options for a long-term
solution for placements, have been explored.