In the media last week were many reports of older and disabled people left without care, food and medication because of Norfolk County Council’s failure to provide adequate and consistent home care services. Their explanation was that they had commissioned a new private company to deliver the services and that private company had not been able to recruit sufficient numbers of staff to carry out the work!
In my view this serious failure is a culmination of many smaller failures resulting from the central government policy in the 1980s of “compulsory competitive tendering” - requiring each local authority to contract out to the private sector those services they themselves were, by law, required to provide. So, a simple appropriate example is that the Home Help Service provided directly and efficiently in one form or another by all local authority Social Services Departments then had to be contracted out to, initially, small private, unregulated companies who performed with varying degrees of incompetence, paying their staff the minimum they could get away with.
The awful thing is that Norfolk County Council, as usual with public bodies, is going to get away scot free with this breach of their Duty of Care, scot free with the breach of their duty under the Community Care Act 1990, and scot free with their breach of their Disability Equality Duty (organisations commissioned by a public body have to abide by their parent’s DED and if they don’t, as in this case, the parent body is liable).
If we also look at the principles and competencies in the new “World Class Commissioning” arrangements for the NHS Norfolk’s incompetence in commissioning this private organisation is massive.
It is about time steps were taken (as with the banks) to ensure local authorities are fully accountable. I think they should at least be prosecuted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Perhaps too, some bright solicitor should organise a class action on behalf of those left without services.
In my view this serious failure is a culmination of many smaller failures resulting from the central government policy in the 1980s of “compulsory competitive tendering” - requiring each local authority to contract out to the private sector those services they themselves were, by law, required to provide. So, a simple appropriate example is that the Home Help Service provided directly and efficiently in one form or another by all local authority Social Services Departments then had to be contracted out to, initially, small private, unregulated companies who performed with varying degrees of incompetence, paying their staff the minimum they could get away with.
The awful thing is that Norfolk County Council, as usual with public bodies, is going to get away scot free with this breach of their Duty of Care, scot free with the breach of their duty under the Community Care Act 1990, and scot free with their breach of their Disability Equality Duty (organisations commissioned by a public body have to abide by their parent’s DED and if they don’t, as in this case, the parent body is liable).
If we also look at the principles and competencies in the new “World Class Commissioning” arrangements for the NHS Norfolk’s incompetence in commissioning this private organisation is massive.
It is about time steps were taken (as with the banks) to ensure local authorities are fully accountable. I think they should at least be prosecuted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Perhaps too, some bright solicitor should organise a class action on behalf of those left without services.
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Here is my blog post - Trust Deeds Scotland