Campaigners welcome Brighton and Hove Council's pledge on sensitive contracts

Domestic abuse campaigners have welcomed Brighton and Hove City Council’s pledge to improve the way that it handles sensitive contracts in future.

The Rise Up campaign group said that it did not believe that domestic abuse charity RISE would have lost key contracts if councillors had been more involved in the tender process.

Thousands of people petitioned the council after RISE lost two key contracts worth up to £5 million over seven years.

And the campaign group’s comments came after a review by councillors “found no evidence to suggest that there were any flaws in the procurement process or that decisions for the two contracts were wrong”.

Rise Up campaigners said: “It is hard to marry the damning findings of the report with the conclusion.

“We strongly doubt the procurement outcome would have been the same if councillors from Brighton and Hove had had oversight of the process.

“The council’s decision to take future procurement in-house is a testament to that.

“The recommendations of the report signal strongly a chaotic process where suppliers and services users were not adequately consulted, key staff members weren’t replaced and local oversight was absent.

“We welcome the recommendations of the report to increase the social value percentage of procurement contracts.

“Far too often, large national organisations have used their muscle to take over locally grown and established organisations, often dismantling a delicate and working eco-system.

“A charity is more than the sum of its parts. Decades of establishing local services and relationships, staff, volunteer teams and trust, only to have the services be handed piecemeal to outside organisations have been a dispiriting picture throughout the UK.”

RISE lost its contracts after Brighton and Hove City Council joined forces with East Sussex County Council and the Office of the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner to commission some services jointly. East Sussex officials led the process.

Green councillor Steph Powell, who led a cross-party review of the debacle, said that there would be a greater emphasis in future on aspects of services that were hard to measure. These aspects could include qualities such as empathy, kindness, integrity and boundary setting.

She also said that the council would procure local services for those affected by domestic abuse and violence itself in future rather than collaborating with others again.

Councillor Powell said of the review: “Our collaboration and attention to this work has been absolutely second to none. It has been a true cross-party effort.

“Our number one priority during this process has been and remains providing survivors of domestic violence and domestic abuse with the best client-centred support wherever possible.”

Conservative councillor Steve Bell said: “It is unfortunate we had to look at this but it is fortunate decisions have been made and a clear process put in place.

“We as elected councillors can feel confident when other contracts and awards are given to third parties, especially in our voluntary sector that we value so highly.”

Labour councillor Amanda Evans took part in the cross-party review. She said that it could have descended into a finger-pointing exercise, with Greens and Labour having a go at each other over who was in charge at the different stages of the procurement process.

She said: “The Tories could have said they were the only ones with clean hands on this but it didn’t happen. Serving the survivors of this city was too important to let that happen.”

Green councillor Tom Druitt also took part in the cross-party review. He said: “It was a real eye opener for me. The biggest thing was listening to all the stories of the survivors.

“It’s not a service I have really had any experience of or knew much about it before all of this work.

“I’m really grateful I’ve had a whole new perspective on an area of the council I didn’t know anything about.”

It emerged that decisions about the procurement process had not been properly followed and officials will now be expected to use a “decision tracker” to ensure councillors’ democratic votes are implemented.