Carers in Hull face an uncertain future

A DECISION to award a new £1.5 million contract providing support services for carers in Hull is to be reviewed.

The city council announced in June it was extending its current contract with the Carers’ Centre charity for another two months after concerns were raised over the tendering process.

Now scrutiny councillors have agreed to a call-in request over the move to award the contract to another provider.

It means the decision will have to be reconsidered by corporate director Trish Dalby, who was given delegated responsibility by the council’s cabinet to award the three-year contract.

The issue could also go back to the cabinet if council leader Councillor Steve Brady agrees.

Ms Dalby opted to award the contract to the City Healthcare Partnership (CHP), a new community interest company set up two years ago as offshoot of the city’s NHS primary care trust.

Speaking at the scrutiny meeting, Councillor Dave McCobb claimed both the council’s decision-making process and the timetable behind the new contract had been flawed.

He said not enough consideration had been given to the impact on existing services for carers in the event of the contract being awarded to another provider.

In particular, he highlighted the risk of the Carers’ Centre now losing a £430,000 lottery grant as a result of the contract decision.

“There has been no consideration of the knock-on effect of that,” he said.

He also questioned why a previously agreed timetable for letting the new contract had been delayed from last November before finally getting under way in early April.

Once the contract decision was finally confirmed, he said the Carers’ Centre was given just seven working days to prepare for its staff to be transferred to the CHP.

Mr McCobb said this would have also caused widespread concerns for carers over the continuity of support services.

Councillor Rosemary Pantelakis said: “I do not think the council has behaved at all well in this situation.

“The least people involved in the bidding process could have expected was to have been treated with respect.”

She said by failing to secure the new contract, the Carers’ Centre had been left in an almost impossible predicament.

“It seems to me the Carers’ Centre was put in a position where it would have had to cope with transferring its staff and most of its services to another provider in just a few days.

“That cannot be right.”

Angela Dunn, the council’s head of social care, said four tenders for the new contract had been evaluated on both quality and price on a 70/30 per cent split.

She said delays in the process were because of uncertainty over budgets, ongoing changes within NHS departments and a question mark over whether support for children who care for relatives should be included in the tender.

She also acknowledged that some issues could have been handled better.

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