This pilot focuses on the development of public-social partnerships and aims to test this model as a way to create new aspiring social enterprises based on public procurement opportunities – the overarching aim is to deliver high quality public services.
The public-social partnership activity is taking place under 3 areas/themes
Renfrewshire has been selected as a geographical area to test approaches to developing public-social partnership around development of new services. RCVS is leading on this area of the pilot.
Community-based recycling has been chosen as the theme for developing a public-social partnership based around the development of new services. CRNS is leading on this side of the work which will take place in North Lanarkshire.
Operational Group: Social Work Dept R.C, Economic Dev R.C, R.C.V.S, W.R.V.S, RCA Trust, Volunteer Centre, Renfrewshire Carers, Contact the Elderly, RAMH, Paisley University
The pilot has so far delivered a range of activities
E-communication ‘commsgroup; system established to benefit communications between groupings
Researching of demographics, published work and other supporting ‘evidence of need’
Meetings with partners and service users
Research with various partners within local authority regarding procurement systems, practices and regulations including European legislation and directives
Formal launch of project to social economy in Renfrewshire
Development of Marketing material in support of project
Continued meetings to firm up aspects of delivery design
Negotiations underway with social work department re funding arrangements
Meetings held with potential services providers re standards and provision of specific services
Ongoing research on further partnership opportunities
Ran legal framework day to identify consortium development options
Project branding now complete and project will be called ROAR - Reaching Older Adults In Renfrewshire and will be accompanied by a lion logo.
Service design proposal considered by the Social Work Dept. Part of the services will be funded from both the local authority Social Work Dept and Greater Glasgow & Clyde Health Board. Service design group have reconfigured into Implementation Working Group. A timeline is in place for each service element being produced, researching additional funding.
Public-Social Partnership Recycling Initiative Lead Partner: CRNS
This public-social partnership is looking at public-social partnerships in the thematic context of community recycling, through the development of new services. This pilot is led by Community Recycling Network Scotland (supported by Forth Sector).
The first area being piloted is North Lanarkshire where a public-social partnership has been established to pilot three services that have been identified by the Housing Department. Two groups, a Steering group and a Service Design Group will deliver the work.
Three furniture projects, RECAP, Beulah Scotland and St Patrick’s Furniture Project are all keen to be involved although they will need support to build capacity. The CRNS and the Social Economy Support Team at the Business Gateway will help them do this.
The Service Design group will be chaired by Development Officer from CRNS and will have representatives from the three furniture projects.
This pilot has now delivered a range of activities:
Service specifications have been designed for all three services with in put from service users, furniture projects and North Lanarkshire Council. These are more efficient, user friendly services which differ significantly from existing services.
Service design, including costs and specifications now agreed for the furniture storage service and the emergency furniture packs. The service design process has involved service users, the six Tenancy Support Teams, the three furniture projects, the ACCESS Project and a number of other furniture projects in UK. The projects are finalising the service design for the permanent pack service. The PSP services will be known as HOMEREACH.
Development staff continues to give capacity building support to participating organisations especially in relation to developing consortium bids for funding.
Three workshops delivered on PSP for delegates at the CRNS annual conference.
Met with six North Lanarkshire Tenancy support teams to discuss PSP.
PSP Launch attended by 40 delegates
Delivered presentation on PSP to Forth Valley Waste Strategy
The pilots commenced across North Lanarkshire. The social enterprises are now the sole providers of the three services which are being piloted through PSP.
The Council brought together a team of people to start developing the tender. The Procurement Manager at North Lanarkshire Council is overseeing the process and is seeking advice from the Scottish Executive Procurement Directorate on the weighting that can be given to the community benefit clause.
Organised and chaired one Steering Group meeting and one Design Committee meeting
Arranged and attended three meetings between the social enterprises involved in the pilot
Attended an event (through another EQUAL programme) on service user involvement
Met with North Lanarkshire Council at the end of March to discuss how well the pilots are progressing.
The service users and the teams within the Council that are using the services are very positive about the services that are being delivered.
Advised on the development of a possible PSP in Edinburgh which will see three large social enterprises come together to pilot the bulky waste service.
Carried out a survey of Homelessness Strategy Officers in Scotland to allow us to benchmark the success of the North Lanarkshire model
Provided support to two of the social enterprises involved to carry out an LM3 on both the pilots and their individual organisations
Mainstreaming Activities:
Met with and sent report on PSP to Scottish Executive Homelessness Unit.
Gave presentation on PSP to Furniture Reuse Network national conference and ran workshops;
Exhibited at national procurement conference;
Exhibited ar Scottish Council for Single Homelessness and ran workshop on PSP at "Starter Packs".
Took the CEO of London Community Recycling Network(LCRN) on a PSP tour. LCRN is promoting the PSP model to the UK government.
Gave a presentation on PSP at a Chartered Institute of Housing event.
Edinburgh ILM Project Lead Partner: Forth Sector
This pilot activity will focus on developing an employment consortium. This third theme under PSP pilot activity only started in August06.
This fits with the Edinburgh Social Enterprise Strategy.
The following activities are being looked at under this pilot:
Mapping of the employment continuum in Edinburgh, including identifying any gaps in provision
Identifying full cost recovery of wrap around employment support for ILM/Social firm.
Identifying potential start-up or investment funding for the social firm.
Carrying out market research into the potential niche for a social recruitment agency.
Facilitated discussion of wrap-around service.
Identifying potential partners for the consortium
Development work with Edinburgh academies to map gaps in provision
Impact mapping of the social outcomes of consortium development.
The outputs will be:
A report on the potential of consortium development for the partners. This report will detail the next stage of development and be the basis of business plan.
Service specification and sub-contractor guidelines
A presentation on the lessons learned to the Edinburgh Local Social Economy Partnership
A debate on issues involved in the process was undertaken on Monday 29th January and initial feedback from the group was overwhelmingly positive. However, the Edinburgh Employment PSP is still within the development stage and although a number of organisationsn have agreed to the concept in principle, it would be premature to constitute them as consortium members at this stage. In general the development of the consortium has taken a great deal of time due to the number of organisations involved and the other time commitments of the individuals attending the meetings. The number of organisations attending these meetings is increasing but as yet there are no public sector partners involved. Additionally no funding attached to this consortium and there are two potential rivals to this service within the city that may lower the possibility of obtaining funding for the consortium.
