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Competitive Tendering: Specialist Domestic Abuse Services
Letter from Scottish Women's Aid, 6 September 2021
Dear Neil Gray and Members of the Social Security and Justice Committee,
Scottish Women’s Aid (SWA) welcomes the formation of this committee, and the important areas for which it will be responsible. We are contacting you to ask specifically about your responsibilities in relation to domestic abuse, and to request information about how you see that part of your remit.
We are particularly keen to understand your remit in light of our increasing concerns about decisions by some local authorities to undertake competitive tender exercises for critical, life-saving specialist domestic abuse services. These procurement processes have privileged gender-blind services (in direct conflict with Equally Safe) and resulted in some cases in defunding of decades-old local grass-roots Women’s Aid services.
Our concerns also include the failure of some local authorities to follow the commissioning guidance produced by COSLA and SWA . This guidance challenges the myth that there is a statutory requirement to put domestic abuse services out to tender. Specifically, p15 sets out service contract arrangements under the ‘light touch regime’. As is clear from regulations 74-76 of the Public Contract (Scotland) Regulations 2015, alternative approaches are possible, and are considered modern good practice. We would be keen to understand and discuss how the Scottish Parliament and COSLA could encourage greater awareness of and compliance with this guidance.
These concerns have unfortunately been highlighted by the recent decision of North Lanarkshire Council to undertake a competitive tendering process that insisted on a gender-blind approach to service provision and that awarded a contract that we think puts women and children experiencing domestic abuse in North Lanarkshire (and the services that serve them) at great risk.
We therefore request that the Committee considers a formal investigation into the competitive tendering and decision taken by NLC.
Thank you for considering our questions and request for an investigation. Please do get in touch with us if you require any further information or any clarification.
Sincerely,
Dr. Marsha Scott, CEO