Procurement solutions for South Lanarkshire

Background

Scotland Excel’s Flexible Procurement Team began working with South Lanarkshire Council in November 2021. Our remit was to deliver two projects, one of which we are highlighting in this case study. The success of those two tenders has since resulted in another project with the council which is currently being undertaken.

Overview

All three projects were based on our ‘hosted’ model. This enabled the council to hand over specific procurement exercises to us to undertake on their behalf. In each instance, the council wanted to ‘call off’ from an existing Scotland Excel framework. One of those ‘call-offs’ was from the Social Care Case Management Framework.

Our Flexible Procurement Team always acts as an extension of the member organisation we are working on behalf of. We abide by their standing orders and use their templates, ensuring familiarity for their teams. It also ensures our engagement with all relevant stakeholders is aligned with that of the organisation’s procurement team.

What we did

We provided procurement support, from strategy to award stage, for a new social work case management system to meet the Health and Social Care Partnership’s requirement for a modern software solution with increased functionality to better suit changing needs.

For this mini competition, the council opted for an evaluation including a comprehensive technical evaluation. Their needs were varied, with numerous contributing stakeholders each having a wish list of desired features. Recognising the importance of communication in making this a success, we engaged with the various council staff across the social care, IT and legal teams. Through this, we gained a full understanding of the key requirements of the council, resulting in 473 individual evaluation criteria being identified to assess the providers’ capability to deliver.

We managed this in a way that ensured the new system being procured would have as many functional requirements as possible for an ‘off the shelf’ product, without the need for expensive and resource-intensive customisation at implementation stage. Our approach also ensured that providers could be compliantly evaluated and scored, mitigating any of the natural risks associated with a comprehensive tender.

The sheer volume of requirements and details provided led to over 100 questions from tenderers during the live tender. Responses to these were managed by the evaluation panel, the council’s legal and procurement leads and coordinated by Scotland Excel.

With such a complicated tender, diligent planning and clear communication throughout the whole process was a necessity.

We created a bespoke evaluation guide document for the technical panel which clearly identified the areas requiring strict compliance. This allowed the process to run smoothly.

Outcome

Our Flexible Procurement Team managed a robust mini competition which included:

• Preparing initial tender documents to a high standard,
• Facilitating a complex evaluation,
• Monitoring and capturing all dialogue that affected scores.

As a result, the council was able to conclude a compliant contract award, within budget and timescale and is now working towards implementation of the new social work case management system.

Testimonial

Doreen Pollock, Project Manager with South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership, said: “The service we received from Scotland Excel was excellent.  They were very supportive and informative, guiding us through a very complex process.  Overall, we were very impressed with their professionalism and knowledge.  We would highly recommend this service and would not hesitate to use again.”