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Direct delivery and smaller subcontractors squeezed out
by warjacqui on 28 Oct, 2008 in
Possibly come up elsewhere - how many agencies, delivery specific, have walked away from FND when they have seen the massive, short turn around forms primes are asking them to fill in? When they want to cover all bases, they have to do this many times over?
Why not, in round 2, have a standard proforma, with DWP central surgeries to help them fill them in, instead of those pointless speed dating sessions? That way primes could all access a database of forms from DWP and talk to each subbie individually - putting the onus and pressures on the well resourced primes rather than the local subbies who are mostly concentrating on delivering?
Has this resulted in all the usual protagonists being subbies as a quid pro-quo to their opposition in other areas, at the expense of the local networks?
I was looking at setting this up myself a few months back, but the DWP managed to do just enough to make it appear they were going to support subcontracting properly, and I cancelled. I agree it would be easy enough to use a standard pro-forma with enough info for primes to select potential subcontractors for interview, which would save everyone time.
Some FND Primes are really beginning to show their colours now.
I have received 2 identical emails this week from Prime bid writers thanking me for filling out their mammoth subcontractor applications forms, thanking me for dragging myself across the country to meet them and they are rewarding me with..... "ad hoc services depending on individual need".
I currently have 30 staff involved in New Deal delivery and can not take out leases on premises and provide staff with contracts on the promise of "ad hoc" work.
So I have told both organisations to remove details of my company from their tenders. Now, are they really going to take out all the employer names, the LEP links and the hours of consultancy about the local labour market I have provided? I doubt it very much.
Genuine DWP partnerships are still a complete nonsense for many Primes. There are, however, some notable exceptions.
Are we still able to feed back to DWP commissioning on what a nightmare process this is for small, local providers? I've now done about 20 FND mini-tenders, travelled the length and breadth of the country and done so much 'speed dating' that I feel like Cilla Black.
We recently won a large ESF contract. It took one tender.
I'm beginning to think that if we're not involved in FND it may be a blessing in disguise - which is sad given that successfully supporting New Deal customers into work has been the heartbeat of our company.
I'm sorry to hear the subcontracting worked out that way for you, Bungle. You may be right about being better off out of it - subcontractors are quite clearly going to be the ones to suffer if something goes wrong, and I suspect some providers will succumb to overpromising because they can't afford to lose their New Deal delivery.
With regards to the 'ad hoc' service, bidders give this out for two reasons:
Bungle - make sure you feed back to DWP and don't be afraid to name names! The DWP fND contacts for each contract area are listed on the website
I have seen a lot of pro formas from smaller providers and can readily understand the lack of commitment. Often poorly detailed responses, with very little demonstrated experience of meeting the requirements. Those who can well demonstrate an ability to deliver concrete performance at a suitable price for a sufficient number of customers are worth having in.
It is likely that everything will be more efficient for round 2 but that will be no guarantee of better contracts for subcontracting organisations. If you can't articulate why you should get a big slice of delivery then bidders will consider that a high risk and reduce their dependence on/obligation to you contractually.
Hi WakingDragon, I think this works both ways. It might be that the process itself creates complexity, as many subcontractors don't have the resource to complete more than pro-formas for all 30-odd prime contractors. A filtering stage, where everyone uses the same pro forma before moving on to individual contacts, makes so much sense it's silly.
WakingDragon, my organisation employs over 100 people, hardly a "small provider" and certainly a bigger presence in our region than most FND primes. Our performance and that of many other "smaller providers" is significantly better too.
The FND tender spec requires partnership delivery. It's the bidwriters duty to involve small/specialist/volcom organisations who don't have any specialist staff dedicated to bid writing, let alone 10 X FND applications in a fortnight.
I was infuriated by the fact I had submitted a FND proposal (not in crayon by the way) that was scored by the Prime. They contacted me to say they were very happy with it, wanted to work in partnership and invited me to their HQ to discuss the delivery plan. I spent 3 hours with them talking about our partners, employers and link with local initiatives. 6 weeks they inform me that our FND 'partnership' consists of them referring their FND customers to our other funded provision.
I don't want to work with organisations like that.
The more I read about FND, the more i'm glad we're probably going to be out of it.
Like many smaller/localised providers in our region, i'm focusing on growing our commercial offer and working on DIUS and DCSF funding streams where we can contract directly with funding bodies capable of setting realistic performance targets and financially viable funding.
Heh. To be fair, the prime you were dealing with probably wasted as much of their time as they did of yours. Non-primes really need to be looking at non-DWP funding streams in any case. There may not be a subcontracting requirement in future bids, and the Australian experience was very sour for smaller contractors.
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