Guidance and counselling services

Tender description

An interim contract for the provision of Advocacy Services for An Independent complaints advocacy Service (ICAS) AN Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) An Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA) (including the services in relations to Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards DoLs) Walsall Council is procuring an interim contract for the provision of Advocacy Services for an Independent complaints advocacy Service (ICAS); an Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA); and an Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy (IMCA) The contract arrangements for Advocacy Services ICAS, IMHA, IMCA ceased on the 31 March 2020, with no option to extend. The Adult social care statutory services were previously tendered by Sandwell Metropolitan borough council on behalf of Walsall. Following the introduction of the new Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019 abolishing DoLs and replacing them with Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS), it was the Governments intention that this new LPS legislation would come into force on 1 October 2020. However, the anticipated code of practice guidance for actioners due for publication late 2019 is not yet available and widely anticipated that there will be a delay in legislation changes and statutory duties. Interim arrangements are required to bridge the gap between the dates of the expired contract to the start of a new contract following the introduction of the new legislation for liberty protection safeguards. The interim contract will commence on 1 April 2020 and continue for up to a maximum of 2 years. The interim contract will be awarded to the economic operator that provided the Advocacy Services ICAS, IMHA, IMCA and DoLs under the previous contractual arrangements. The economic operator will be listed in section V of this notice. The Council is utilising the negotiated procedure without prior publication following the procedure set out in Regulation 32. 2) The negotiated procedure without prior publication may be used for public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts in any of the following cases: (b) where the works, supplies or services can be supplied only by a particular economic operator for any of the following reasons: (ii) competition is absent for technical reasons For the following reasons: That it is reported that no other supplier in the market at this time would be in a position to fulfil the offer proposed by the existing supplier given the suppliers involvement as a national key player in the in the code of practice development, their sharing of good practice development towards LPS implementation and access to data sets/information we would not normally have access to (and free of charge), trialling the transition of individual advocacy roles to create a cross cutting service across the lifetime of the contract – ensuring management oversight, appropriate standards, qualifications and experience — which will achieve better value for money. There is requirement and supplier offering of services that are; In addition to existing services already purchased by the Council, Could not be accessed from another supplier without significant disproportionate difficulties in the operation of existing services.