Issue - meetings

Background:

This report sought permission to commence the procurement of a new Children and Adult’s Social Care System(s) that would address the service recording, payments, charging and management information needs of both Children and Adult’s Social care.

To achieve collaborative working across the directorate, the procurement of an integrated system would allow the sharing of relevant data between the children’s and adult’s divisions.  This would provide practitioners with a more complete picture of a child or adults’ care requirements, reducing data entry for users, thereby enabling staff in both divisions to spend more time with service users.

It was noted that a recent market analysis exercise had suggested that there were shared systems available that will meet the needs of both sides of the social care business. It was reported that whilst the aim was to procure one system in line with the needs of the directorate, it may not be possible to meet the distinct needs of both services in one system in which case it may be necessary to buy two systems. This would need to be taken into account at the specification and tendering stage of the process. 

The report considered the options available and recommended procurement via the Local Government Software Application Solutions framework. An exempt appendix set out detailed finance and whole-life costing information.

It was noted that the Strategic Procurement Board had considered and recommended this Gateway 1 report to Cabinet on 3 August 2011.

Reasons:

The project underpins the Core Values of Medway Council and the commencement of the Social Care Systems procurement means that the business needs of the Children and Adults directorate are met in line with the Department for Education and Department of Health.