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Report to: |
Lead Member for Resources and Climate Change |
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Date of meeting: |
26 July 2022 |
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By: |
Director of Adult Social Care and Health
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Title: |
Keep it Local – Locality’s Campaign Network
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Purpose: |
To inform the Lead Member for Resources and Climate Change of the Keep it Local Campaign Network and seek agreement for the county council to join the network. |
The Lead Member for Resources and Climate Change is recommended to:
1) Agree that the county council should join the Keep it Local Network;
2) With the Chief Executive, sign an endorsement to support the Council’s commitment;
3) Nominate himself as the Cabinet Keep it Local Champion;
4) Nominate the Director of Adult Social Care and Health as the senior management champion;
5) Delegate authority to the Director of Adult Social Care and Health to take all steps necessary to implement the recommendation.
1.1 Locality is a national membership network supporting local community organisations to be strong and successful. Keep it Local is Locality’s campaign in partnership with the Lloyd’s Bank Foundation, to support local authorities in unlocking the power of community, building strong local partnerships, sharing power, and maximising local strengths.
1.2. The Keep it Local campaign has been working over the past three years to build a network of local authorities that have signed up to the six Keep it Local principles and believe that by working with communities they can create collaborative public services and invest in the local economy.
1.3 Local
Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector partners
are keen that East Sussex County Council (ESCC) should join the
network.
2.1 Keep it Localhas co-designed the six key principles with councillors, commissioners, council officials, community actors and policy experts from amongst the network, along with a body of research and case studies to share and spread best practice and support councils in working to the following six principles (described in more detail in Appendix 1)
2.2 The six principles are:
1. Think about the whole, system not individual service silos
2. Co-ordinate services at a neighbourhood level
3. Increase local spend to invest in the local economy
4. Focus on early intervention now to save costs tomorrow
5. Commit to your community and proactively support local organisations
6. Commission services simply and collaboratively so they are “local by default”
2.3 Local Authorities joining the network are asked to endorse the six Keep it Local principles at an executive level by taking a public decision to join, and the Leader or relevant cabinet member and chief executive signing an endorsement.
2.4 Once these steps are taken, Locality suggest the following activities:
• Appoint a ‘Keep it Local champion’ in the Cabinet and in the Senior Management Team to help embed Keep it Local practice across ESCC. See Appendix 2 for more detail on what the role of the Keep it Local champion might entail.
• Convene a conversation with local communities to ensure this supports and strengthens local partnerships.
• Work with Locality and peer councils in the Keep it Local Network to assess and improve current practice.
2.5 There is no financial cost to ESCC in joining the Keep it Local Network, and all joining councils are given a year of free Locality partner membership.
2.6 ESCC has an existing Council Plan target of 60% of procurement spend to be with local suppliers. In 2021-22, ESCC spent £283m with 958 local suppliers over the 12 month period, which equates to 67.9% of our total spend. This figure includes our Tier 2 supplier data (i.e. the direct spend with ESCC’s suppliers that is then sub-contracted by them to a local supplier). The Procurement team already actively promotes our contract opportunities to local suppliers, as well as building local supply chain opportunities into our tenders where possible.
2.7 Involvement in the Keep it Local Network is not intended to rapidly change the way we do business, or who we do business with, but will underpin work already underway to support incremental improvements in line with the six principles.
2.8 The recent consultation by the Cabinet Office on the Green Paper Transforming Public Procurement has been completed. There is a potential benefit for ESCC joining the Keep it Local network at a time when legislation may make adhering to the six principles achievable, as it may contribute to the further strengthening of relationships with local VCSEs. ESCC’s involvement with the network will enable us to be part of discussions that will be influenced by the passage of the Transforming Public Procurement Bill and help shape our internal and partner (for example, NHS) work with VCSE Alliance partners in future VCSE commissioning and procurement.
3 Conclusion and recommendations
3.1 Many of the six Keep it Local principles are already embedded within our core business, including our approach to commissioning and procurement and our whole systems approach to partnership working with the NHS and VCSE. The Keep it Local Network provides ESCC with the opportunity to publicly endorse the six principles, and continue towards creating collaborative public services, and invest in the local economy.
3.2 It will provide ESCC with a further opportunity to frame our approach to commissioning and procurement that takes account of existing conversations with our local partners, including fora such as the VCSE Partnership Plus meeting.
3.3 As such, the Lead Member for Resources and Climate Change is recommended to agree to ESCC joining the Keep it Local network and emphasise ESCC’s commitment by signing an endorsement with the Chief Executive. It is also recommended that he appoints himself as the Cabinet Keep it Local Champion, and appoints the Director of Adult Social Care and Health as the senior management champion.
MARK STAINTON
Director of Adult Social Care and Health
Contact Officer: Paul Rideout
Tel. No. 07712 543357
Email: paul.rideout@eastsussex.gov.uk