End of SWIEP Involvement Report
The Professional Services Project
Project Title / The E-Marketplace for Care/PersonalisationProject Reference
SWIEP Workstream
Programme Manager
Report Author / Dominique Gregory
Date / September 1st 2011
1 End of SWIEP Involvement Report
1.1 Revision History
Revision date / Summary of changesFirst issue
1.2 Approvals
This report requires the following approvals
Name / Signature / Title / DateLocal authority approvals
Dominique Gregory / Project Manager
Claire Smart / Project Sponsor
South West Councils approvals
Ann Cooper / Programme Manager
SMT
2 Project Summary
Please summarise the original goals, objectives and success criteria. Have these changed since the project started? Please describe any changes.
Project Objective Statement:Personalisation means thinking about public services and social care in an entirely different way – starting with the person and their individual circumstances rather than the service.
In order to effectively deliver personalisation Service Users receive an allowance from which to purchase their own care. Varying support can be provided by statutory agencies to assist with this. The take up of personal budgets within Local Authorities is a performance measure that is watched closely to monitor how accessible the system has become to Service Users. Whilst personal budgets are easy to access and administer, it is often the supply/market side that inhibits take up i.e. there is a lack of clarity of what services are available for Service Users to spend their budgets on.
A Solution
The use of market place technology, where a shopper inputs their requirements and results are instantly returned to them, is now widespread. Thousands of holidays, hotels, goods and services are booked by the public daily through sites like Amazon, lastminute.com etc all using market place technology.
Marketplace technology has a number of benefits:
· Real time: The solution is extremely responsive.
· Simplicity: It offers a highly sophisticated solution without the complexity normally inherent in such a package.
· Inclusive: The market can be extended to any supplier of any service. There is no limit to suppliers or purchasers.
· Flexibility: It can link to other databases and to charging mechanisms
· Management Information: It is possible to see which suppliers are logging on the most, how long it takes to fulfill requests, areas of unmet need, etc.
· Familiarity: This is the way most people currently now do business so it will not represent a threat.
· Quality monitoring: It has the ability to be able to introduce a user-lead monitoring system. Service Users can be encouraged to score services/ organizations or even provide comments.
· 24 hour accessibility
The Solution – Delivering Personalisation
Although no empirical study has been carried out on available market solutions the ones currently identified appear either to be overly complex or overly prescriptive and therefore do not have the flexibility to do everything that a bespoke marketplace would. One solution “holds the hand” of the user in a very prescriptive way from the assessment process onwards (and is therefore rather inflexible). When software presents a solution for ‘real people’ there are invariably many instances that constitute exceptions; the more prescriptive a solution is the higher these incidents are until the package loses credibility. Another package invites the suppliers or carers to maintain vacant hours within the database. This requires a lot of work and it is questioned whether they would have the motivation to keep this up to date.
The best solution is therefore likely to be to design a bespoke package using existing marketplace technology. The best solution will be a system that meets the needs of councils, individuals and suppliers/providers.
Summary:
The project will aim to provide a online tool for a marketplace or dps in Gloucestershire and the South West RIEP region, which in turn will deliver personalisation, best practise, savings and thorough market knowledge.
3. Project Progress
3.1 Milestones Performance
Quarterly monitoring will have tracked your Project Plan in terms of meeting milestones that were agreed with South West Councils. Please complete the milestones table, adding rows as necessary.
Description / Forecast Date / Actual Date / Revised Date / Comment / RAG status (see note*)Onboarding, set up project team and stakeholder engagement / July 2011 / July 2011
Research, map current practice (All participating authorities) / July 2011 / Ongoing / Authorities coming on board from SW in October
Investigate dps market / July 2011 / July 2011
Identify resource, timescales and identify benefits / August 2011 / August 2011
Regional consultation plan / August 2011 / August 2011
Design (including interface with Procontract) Funding / Ongoing to end September 2011 / Ongoing / Main flow of system has been designed, details are being finalised
Approval/Authorisation / September 2011 / September 2011 / Approval from Claire Smart at GCC has been obtained to progress
Last 10k invoice to SW RIEP and end of RIEP involvement report / September 2011 / September 2011
Engage partner / October 2011 / TBC
Development / March 2012 / TBC
Supplier engagement and market management / March 2012 / TBC
Pilot/testing / April 2012 / TBC
Roll out/training / May 2012 / TBC
Realise benefits / June 2012 / TBC
Project closure report and case study to SW Councils / June 2012 / TBC
3.2 Project Plan Performance
Is the Project progressing in accordance with the currently agreed Project Plan? If slippage (other than minor) is anticipated, please describe here. Do any anticipated slippages affect the anticipated end date of the Project and, if so, what is the revised projected end date?
The project is progressing in line with the plan and in line with the PID, we now have agreement to progress.
3.3 Financial Performance
Overall Project Budget / £70,000SWIEP funding approved / £70,000
Other funding approved / N/A
Actual spend to date / £
SWIEP funding claimed to date / £
SWIEP funding remaining to be claimed / £10,000 (on completion of this report)
If the project budget includes funding other than SWIEP funding, does this contribution remain secure? If not, what are the issues and how will this affect the project?
4 Project Governance
Please name an officer who holds the Executive role for this project and who has ongoing accountability for the project (not the Project Manager). Please give contact details for future reference as needed.
Name / Position / Email & phoneClaire Smart / Director of Procurement /
5 Risks and Issues
Please describe key risks and issues that have been identified to date and how these are to be managed.
Risk / Impact / Mitigating ActionsDelievering on time / Benefits of system will be postponed until system is in place / By selecting a provider that already has a system up and running that meets our needs timelines should be able to be kept in place
Resources / Without adequate resources the project could stop or the system could fail to be maintained on an ongoing basis / Funding on an ongoing basis must be identified and resourced as early as poddible
Fit fir Purpose / The tool must meet the functional needs of all participating authorities, brokers, clients and suppliers / Ensuring buy in and adequate resourcing from all participating authorities as well as consulting with brokers, clients and suppliers
All aspects of the system must legally comply with EU and UK law / If the tool is noxt legally compliant, authorities will not be able to use it / Legal input must be considered throughout the project
6 Anticipated Outcomes
Please summarise the Project’s main anticipated outcomes and benefits and the approximate dates when it was anticipated that these would start to be delivered. Is the project still on track to deliver these outcomes and benefits and to deliver them on time? If not, why not?
Benefits expected by having a robust online marketplace for care
The benefits expected from procuring and implementing the E-Market Place solution are detailed below.
6.1 Supplier Benefits
§ Timely information on the current status of cases will be available to independent providers at all times.
§ Independent providers will be able to see any urgent cases that have been added to the allocation list – these will be flagged on the system as newly added urgent cases.
§ Independent providers will be able to see if a case if still available without contacting the a purchasing team.
§ A transparent and fair means of publishing the details of cases who require care.
§ The system will be open to all who have the requisite quality levels
§ Free and open market, the better the outcomes and the better the price, the more business they are likely to get
§ Small businesses have as much chance as large ones to win business
6.1.2 Purchasing Benefits
§ Reduction in the amount of contact from suppliers requesting business, everything is done on the system. Saving time for both suppliers and purchasing assistants.
§ Supply and demand market place lead by the individual meaning that budgets are spent where required, can overview markets and manage as necessary.
§ Provision of a secure storage and information sharing method ensuring data protection is maintained at all times.
§ Excellent management information not currently available.
§ Improvement and efficiency savings by having one system to buy all care.
§ Ability to provide timely and accurate information against corporate Key Performance Indicators and individual outcomes.
§ Identify trends, negotiate better rates where we spend the most money
§ Influence and shape the market by having total picture of social care spend
6.1.3 Service User Benefits
§ This will clearly identify which service users have been waiting the longest for care provision.
§ Individuals will be able to choose their own care and manage their own needs
§ The whole process of care to service user should be speeded up.
§ Allow the monitoring of the time it takes to allot care packages against GCC standards for service delivery.
6.1.4 Other
§ Regional collaboration
We are currently on track to deliver these benefits, there is approval to go ahead with the project and milestones are being met.
7 Sharing the learning
How will you ensure that specific project outputs and/or learning from the project will continue accessible to other Council?
Whatever system we implement will be available for use by councils across the south west and nationally. We will support its use on an ongoing basis.