At the recent Welfare to Work Convention Employment Minister Chris Grayling MP explained that he did not expect or foresee local authorities bidding into the framework he explained that….
“One of the reasons why we’ve established the framework as an approach is because it does offer a greater degree of contractual flexibility for local authorities to form partnerships with the providers in their area. If they choose to do so to direct additional funding into meeting individual needs in those local authority areas I see no reason why whether its consortia or whether its groups of organisations working in different forms why local authorities can’t be part of that. What I don’t think is that local authorities can take on the overall capital responsibility for payment by results. If a local authority wants to set up a standalone company, raise the funds through the capital markets to be part of the process that’s fine it’s a local decision. But we’ve never believed that local authorities could themselves be private contractors because effectively it’s the public sector passing risk to another part of the public sector”
DWP is “…encouraging organisations of all sizes from the public, private and voluntary sectors to consider getting involved, either by bidding as a prime contractor or working with others on a partnership/sub-contract basis”
Are these two positions consistent?
We know of two local authorities preparing to apply to the framework.
