Young Brent Foundation

Young Brent Foundation

Providers Consortium

MEMBERSHIP PROSPECTUS

2018

20 April 2018

ContentsPage Number

Executive Summary 3

Introduction and Background 9

Overview of the Operating Environment16

Consortium Vision, Mission, Policy Aims, 21

Underpinning Values and Business Principles

Consortium Model and Operating Structure28

Benefits of Consortium Membership and33

Associated Expectations

Main Operational Issues36

Approach to Quality Assurance40

How Organisations Join the Consortium41

Membership Eligibility Criteria42

MEMBERSHIP PROSPECTUS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Executive Summary

Introduction and Background

The purpose of this Membership Prospectus is to explain what the new YBF Providers Consortium is about, and to invite organisations to apply for membership.

For the avoidance of any potential confusion, it should be noted that the YBF Providers Consortium is an initiative entirely separate from straightforward YBF membership. Henceforth, every time membership is referred to within the document, this relates specifically to membership of the Providers Consortium.

All organisations wishing to join the consortium need to complete the separate application form.

The goal of the consortium will be to safeguard and grow high quality local youth sector provision across the borough, through working with commissioners to co-design services, creating a single point of contracting, and by bidding and tendering competitively for public service contracts and large scale grants via a range of channels.

Overview of theOperating Environment

Generally, the campaign of cuts in public sector finance presents both threats and opportunities for the youth sector. Youth providers need to be more competitive and efficient to be able to survive in the new, more challenging operating environment. However, the sector is potentially in a key position to benefit as and when more services, which previously were the exclusive domain of the public sector, are outsourced to non-state providers.

Consortium Vision and Mission

The vision of the YBF Providers Consortium is to:

Improve the quality of life of Brent’s children, young people and families, and to strengthen the local community, by bringing together the diversity and expertise of locally rooted youth providers

The mission of the consortium is to:

Win significant resources to sustain and grow locally rooted, high quality youth sector provision in response to identified needs

Consortium Model and Operating Structure

The consortium will not be incorporated in its own right. Instead, YBF will function as the lead body for legal purposes.

Commissioning bodies/funders will contract with YBF, which will then be responsible for setting up and managing sub-contracts/funding agreements with individual consortium members.

The membership will elect a ‘Consortium Advisory Board’, which will steer the strategy and direction of the consortium.

Benefits of Consortium Membership and Associated Expectations

It is envisaged that YBF Providers Consortium will generate a number of benefits for its member organisations. These have been clustered under the following headings:

-Negotiating Power and Funding Prospects

-Image and Profile

-Resource Use

-Quality Improvement

-Strategic Capability

Expectations include:

Interest in, support for, and promotion of the development and furtherance of the consortium as a whole and not merely the respective agendas or vested interests of certain member organisations.

Inputting ideas into the further development of the consortium

Inputting ideas/information into, and providing support for, joint tenders and applications, including committing to the co-design of services, with appropriate time being made available by the staff team of the consortium member

Bringing forward the views of young people to inform the co-design of services

Participating in capacity building initiatives

Adhering consistently to the values of the consortium

Certain ‘rules of engagement’ will be set out in a separate collaboration agreement that consortium members will be expected to sign up to.

Main Operational Issues

Roles and Functions of the lead body

Generally, YBF will seek to secure funding and ensure smooth and efficient fund/contract management.

Funding

The contract/fund management functions carried out by YBF, as the lead body, will be paid for via a contract top slice mechanism.

A key underlying principle of the internal resource allocation ratio between lead body/YBF and member organisations is that the vast majority of funding should be invested in the essential requirements of delivery with more money as a result getting through to the individual client, and correspondingly less being absorbed by bureaucracy and administration.

Approach to Quality Assurance

The consortium will adopt a quality assurance policy that all member organisations must adhere to when delivering on behalf of the consortium.

How Organisations Join the Consortium

Organisations need to complete the separate Application for Membership Form.

A formal application process is needed to ensure that organisations are actively committed to the consortium vision and value base and can meet certain standards/thresholds.

Membership Eligibility Criteria

To become a member of the consortium organisations will need to demonstrate that they can meet certain eligibility criteria.

There will be 3 categories of membership available: full (basically, organisations that are ‘contract-ready’), associate (basically, organisations that are not yet ‘contract-ready’ but have the capacity and intention to become so in the near future) and affiliate (basically, organisations that are not yet ‘contract-ready’ and, moreover, lack the capacity and intention to become so in the future – essentially, it is envisaged that affiliates will be informally organised, micro providers).

There are 10 key eligibility criteria divided into 2 parts:

Part 1: Universal Criteria

Provision of services targeted at children and young people

Social Purpose

Local Rootedness

Commitment to consortium working

Commitment to sharing expertise

All consortium members, full, associate or affiliate, will need to demonstrate that they meet all of these universal criteria and be a member of the YBF.

If organisations cannot meet all of these criteria, they will not be granted membership of the consortium.

Part 2: Due Diligence Criteria

Financial health

Quality systems

Suitable organisational policies

Suitable management

Technical capacity

These due diligence criteria are designed to reflect and be similar to the typical criteria set out within Contracting Authorities’ Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (PQQ’s).

All full members will additionally need to demonstrate that they meet all of these due diligence criteria. Associatemembers will have gaps in some areas, but will be supported by YBF to plug those gaps in order to transition to full membership. Affiliates will not need to meet the due diligence criteria in full, as they won’t be in a position to hold sub-contracts.

MEMBERSHIP PROSPECTUS

FULL DOCUMENT

Introduction and Background

Young Brent Foundation (YBF) is an infrastructure support organisation with the key priorities of maximising revenue, strengthening efficiency and reducing duplication across the Voluntary Youth Sector in Brent. We have over 60 members and partners and we are now in a position to develop a consortium approach to enhance our ability & capacity to bid for and deliver contracts and large scale grants that benefit young people in Brent.

The purpose of this Membership Prospectus is to explain what the new YBF Providers Consortium is about, and to invite organisations to apply for membership.

All organisations wishing to join the consortium need to complete the separate application form.

The Prospectus has been structured in such a way as to present a ‘hierarchy of detail’. The key points are summarised in the Executive Summary at the beginning of the document. Please read through this summary first. If, based on the summary, you think the consortium is something that could be an appropriate development for your organisation, then please read through the main body of the document before arriving at a final decision about whether to apply for membership or not. If there are any aspects of this document that are unclear or that require further explanation, then please feel free to contact Satbir West at YBF – email or telephone 07713 432493

The consortium is expressly designed to overcome the barriers that small local providers typically face in trying to access large scale contracts and grants, such as lack of scale and capacity, not being able to meet the required pre-qualification thresholds, and not finding out about the contracting/funding opportunities in the first place etc.

The benefits for commissioners/funders, on the one hand, and frontline providers, on the other, are set out in the table overleaf:

Benefits for commissioners/funders / Benefits for frontline providers

Harnessing the sector’s long and successful track record of service delivery
Reduced transaction costs
Efficiency savings
Development of a commissioning/funding-ready provider base
Overcoming fragmentation within service delivery arrangements through better coordinated and streamlined provision
Single point of contracting/funding
Effective channelling and bundling of existing, small-scale, multiple contracts/SLA’s/grants through the consortium’s intermediary infrastructure
More effective management of escalating community demand, especially amongst disadvantaged and vulnerable service users
Strengthening localism by ensuring that local services are safeguarded and sustained
Leveraging external investment/funding
Capitalisation on the sector’s capacity for added value through, e.g. the ‘volunteer dividend’ and utilisation of wider social resources etc

Increased revenue
Overcoming the barriers to small local providers securing and delivering public service contracts by building critical mass and delivery capacity
Protecting and consolidating the unique selling points that small, independent and niche providers offer
Material net reductions in indirect/overheads expenditure within frontline providers
Driving up standards and continuously improving quality
Sharing expertise and resources for the long-term capacity improvement of members
Increased capacity to leverage social investment and community development finance
A collective voice championing the needs of the consortium members

Critically, what will guide and govern the consortium’s work throughout will be an unswerving commitment to the needs of the children and young people who are the end-users of the services and initiatives provided through the borough-wide network of members. All decisions about consortium strategy, financial objectives, joint working etc will be taken from the standpoint of ensuring that local children and young people’s needs are effectively met.

The focus will be on building on the capacity and track records of existing local youth organisations to deliver a range of bespoke, high quality, value for money services at the point of need.

A key driver for the establishment of the consortium is the current economic climate, with consortium formation being designed to strengthen the resilience of the youth sector in the face of significant cuts in public sector spending and the growing threat of competition from large scale, external providers.

The consortium will be led by YBF, drawing on its internal tendering/bidding and contract management capacity. The Unique Selling Proposition of YBF is that it has been core funded (by John Lyons Charity and City Bridge Trust) for the first 3 years of its operation, and so can focus its time, energy and resources on consortium development, to the benefit of the local sector.

Membership of the consortium will be open to locally embedded providers that can demonstrate a strong commitment to generating social impact (we call such bodies ‘locally rooted social purpose organisations’).

There will be three categories of consortium membership:

Full membership – this will be for organisations that can demonstrate that they meet all of the membership eligibility criteria and that they are ‘contract-ready’ (effectively, this means that by meeting all of the eligibility criteria a full member ‘pre-qualifies’ to be considered for a sub-contract/service level agreement through the consortium, though whether a sub-contract/service level agreement is actually awarded will depend on a range of additional factors relating to the overarching contract framework)

Associate membership – this will be for organisations that are currently able to meet some but not allof the eligibility criteria, but which have the intent and potential to convert to full membership and hence ‘contract readiness’ in due course, with appropriate support and development

Affiliate membership – this will be for small micro providers that are not ‘contract-ready’, and moreover lack the will and capacity to ever become so, but which can add value through ‘supply chain extension’

All members (full, associate and affiliate) will play a full role in the strategic management of the consortium, including being eligible to stand for the Consortium Advisory Board.

All organisations wishing to apply for membership of the consortium need to complete the separate application form.

YBF will adopt a different approach to engaging organisations in the consortium supply chain for a service depending on how that service is being funded.

Contract funding

Where the funding comes through a contract, YBF will establish legally binding sub-contracts with providers. The due diligence thresholds for these sub-contracts will, of necessity, mirror the due diligence/PQQ criteria of the commissioner.

As full members have demonstrated their PQQ-readiness, as evidenced through the membership vetting process,they will be in a strong position to be sub-contracted (though they will have to satisfy additional criteria relating to the specific service being commissioned).

As associate members have demonstrable gaps in their PQQ readiness, as evidenced by the membership vetting process,they will only be considered for sub-contracts with the express agreement of the commissioner.

Affiliate members will not be in a position to secure sub-contracts, due to the legal risk associated with such arrangements.

However, both associates and affiliates will be potentially embraced in service delivery through a ‘supply chain extension’ approach. This will involve YBF paying associates and affiliates for certain specified services, not in line with performance against a legally binding sub-contract, but by more flexible payment methods, such as spot purchasing and payment on invoice. See figure 1.

Figure 1: APPROACH TO CONTRACTS

Grant funding

A different approach will be adopted for grant funding. Here associates will be as equally eligible as full members to receive funding through YBF via a service level agreement. This is because the due diligence thresholds/PQQ criteria applied for contracts are typically not required for grants.

Affiliates will still be paid through flexible spot purchasing/payment on invoice methods. This is in recognition that they will typically be unincorporated associations with, therefore, limited risk exposure thresholds, even in the context of less binding service level agreements. See figure 2.

Figure 2: APPROACH TO GRANTS

Funding Loadbands

In line with its risk management strategy for the consortium, YBF will adhere to the following indicative funding loadbands:

Full MembersNo upper limit in funding that the organisation can receive from YBF in any given year

Associate Members Capped at a maximum of £25k in any given year

Affiliate MembersCapped at a maximum of £10k in any given year

This is articulated in the following table:

Membership Category / Indicative criteria / Indicative FundingCap (per annum) / Indicative Payment Method
1: Full Members / Corporate structure for risk mitigation
PQQ ready
Experience of successfully holding contracts
Externally validated QMS (clear demonstration of commitment to high quality output – NON-NEGOTIABLE)
Raft of policies (including robust Safeguarding and Health & Safety Policies – NON-NEGOTIABLE) / No upper limit / Sub-contract/SLA paid on profile/against invoice.
2: Associate Members / Corporate structure for risk mitigation
Some gaps in PQQ readiness
Limited experience in holding contracts (but some experience of running grant-funded projects)
Some written quality procedures but these don’t necessarily form a coherent, externally validated QMS (but clear demonstration of commitment to high quality output – NON-NEGOTIABLE)
Robust Safeguarding and Health & Safety Policies – NON-NEGOTIABLE / £25k / SLA/Payment on Invoice/Regular Spot Purchasing
3: Affiliate Members / Micro, informally organised groups (unincorporated associations)
No experience of holding contracts
No or minimal written QA procedures (but clear demonstration of commitment to high quality output – NON-NEGOTIABLE)
Robust Safeguarding and Health & Safety Policies – NON-NEGOTIABLE / £10k / Payment on Invoice/ One-off spot purchasing

As stated, these load bands are indicative and YBF will apply discretion in each case.

YBF will also operate with an informal rule of thumb when awarding sub-contracts, to the effect that, generally, the value of the sub-contract should not be equivalent to more than one half of the provider’s annual turnover. This reflects the new condition within the 2015 Public Contract Regulations that Contracting Authorities should not set as a pre-qualifying criterion a contract value to turnover ratio of greater than 1:2.