Extra Care Housing Procurement Support
Cornwall Council had an ambition to enable the delivery of in excess of 3,500 new Extra-Care housing units in Cornwall by 2025 through a series of commercial approaches. The most significant approach was to appoint a strategic partner or partners to work with it to:
- develop a wave of Extra-Care housing across Cornwall at scale and pace;
- develop, deliver and operate a minimum of 750 Extra-Care housing units across Cornwall; and
- provide a blended solution for the provision of core care and add on care services in these units.
The Council had devised this headline strategy but needed support to turn these aspirations into a deliverable solution.
The Council therefore appointed 31ten as strategic, procurement and financial consultants to lead the project in partnership with Sharpe Pritchard as legal advisors.
The Role
31ten was appointed to provide expert strategic, procurement and financial support and guidance to support the potential commercial solutions. The scope of the role included:
- Working with the Council to develop the most appropriate strategic approach to the commercial solution;
- Development of the procurement approach to go to market to source a commercial partner for the Council – Competitive Dialogue;
- Development of the procurement document suite, including: Evaluation questions, financial assessment methodologies and models, including a complex bidder template that underpinned the commercial offer from bidders and commercial aspects of core documents including detailed requirements
- Leading on the Competitive Dialogue process including: Working with the Council and other advisors to lead competitive dialogue sessions, contributing to the clarifications process, marking and being part of moderation for bidder submissions and contributing to contract close to sign up the strategic partner.
The procurement was a complex arrangement that was seeking to bring together development, management and care experience into an innovative partnership structure that was a new model yet to be delivered across the UK. This model was particularly targeted at addressing the market failure in Cornwall where little, to no, new care facilities had been delivered in a number of years, and where very few of the major care providers are active.
As a result, it was necessary to bring together these three key areas, and set them out in a clear way so as to target market interest whilst developing a procurement approach and set of legal arrangements that captured the way this partnership would operate. This was developed in partnership between the Council’s experts, 31ten and Sharpe Pritchard to achieve an effective partnership structure that delivered the Council’s requirements.
Key Outcomes
A Strategic Partner was successfully procured for the Council in the form of the Mears group in late 2020. The partnership is now in operation and delivering new care facilities across the County.
31ten worked with the cross departmental Council team and Sharpe Pritchard seamlessly to deliver a challenging model that will result in much needed new care facilities across the County. They brought a fantastic mix of knowledge and understanding of partnership models, the procurement process and the development market that was invaluable in navigating a very challenging procurement process to help us find a significant partner.
Sue Ryde, Strategic Commissioner for Accommodation with Care
