Copy of your contract with Bloom

The request was partially successful.

Dear North East Procurement Organisation,

The ICO Guidance on Outsourcing and Freedom of Information requests contains the following advice:

"18. It’s important to establish an objective reason for deciding
whether certain information is held by a contractor on behalf of
a public authority. The primary source that we would consider
is the contract between the authority and the contractor. As
this defines the relationship between, and the responsibilities
of, the two parties, it provides an objective, evidence-based
approach to resolving the issue. We recommend that public
authorities should refer to the contract if they need to resolve
an issue as to what information is held on their behalf. While it
is unlikely that the contract will define explicitly what is held on
behalf of the authority, it may indicate, for example:

 what information the contractor is required to provide to
the authority for reporting and monitoring purposes,
 what information the authority has the right to see, and
whether there are any conditions on that access, or
 what happens to information that is in the contractor’s
possession at the termination of the contract eg whether it
remains with the contractor or reverts to the authority.

19. Clauses containing indications such as these can be of help in
establishing what is held on behalf of the public authority. "

Q1. Please supply a copy of the contract[s] between NEPO and Bloom for the services provided?

Q2. What information is Bloom required to provide NEPO with for reporting and monitoring purposes?

Q3a. What information held by Bloom does NEPO have a right to see?

Q3b. What conditions (if any) apply to NEPO access to information held by Bloom?

Q4. On termination of the NEPO contract with Bloom does information remain with Bloom or does it revert to NEPO?

Yours faithfully,

Dave Orr

NEPO Governance, North East Procurement Organisation

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Orr,

 

Please find attached response to the Freedom of Information request
submitted 19^th November.

 

Kind regards,

 

Governance Team

North East Procurement Organisation (NEPO)

 

[1][email address] | [2]nepo.org

Guildhall, Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 3AF

Find us on: [3]LinkedIn | [4]Twitter

  

Christmas opening hours: NEPO will close at 17.00 on Wednesday 23
December, reopening at 8.30 Monday 4 January 2021. For details of NEPO
Portal support over this period, please visit [5]nepo.org. We wish you a
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

References

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1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.nepo.org/
3. https://www.linkedin.com/company/nepo-no...
4. https://twitter.com/NEPOprocurement
5. http://www.nepo.org/

Dear NEPO Governance,

NEPRO(2) which ran from 2015 – 2019, please.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

NEPO Governance, North East Procurement Organisation

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Orr,

 

Please find attached response to your Freedom of Information request
submitted 16^th December.

 

Kind regards,

 

Governance Team

North East Procurement Organisation (NEPO)

 

[1][email address] | [2]nepo.org

Guildhall, Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 3AF

Find us on: [3]LinkedIn | [4]Twitter

  

NEPRO³ recommended in new DfE guidance for schools: New guidance from the
Department for Education has singled out NEPRO³ as the preferred route for
educational settings to appoint and manage specialist professional
services. Find out more here [5]https://bit.ly/3mQEuN9   

 

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.nepo.org/
3. https://www.linkedin.com/company/nepo-no...
4. https://twitter.com/NEPOprocurement
5. https://bit.ly/3mQEuN9

Dear North East Procurement Organisation,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of North East Procurement Organisation's handling of my FOI request 'Copy of your contract with Bloom'.

I asked for a blank pro forma of the NEPO2 framework agreement (without any specific client details or commercial information) and the one provided is excessively redacted.

I need to see all of the contents page so that I can see all sections. Where redaction occurs the section heading should remain and all information should remain except the parts that are truly confidential.

Redaction to the content page stops me seeing what the sections redacted are for. This is absurd.

For example, the dispute resolution process is redacted and given that these are public contracts with public bodies then how the dispute resolution works is not confidential nor is it a trade secret.

The section on Freedom of Information has been redacted which is a high point of irony and prevents me from seeing whether I can access information concerning the failed contract with Ignite that led to Taunton Deane and West Somerset Councils merging into a new Somerset West and Taunton Council, who inherited a failed programme with added and unexpected costs of around £10m, rather than the promised savings of £3m per annum promised by Ignite.

I, therefore, conclude that the basis for the redactions of a blank pro forma is not supported by the FOIA exemptions applied and if this Internal Review is rejected then I intend to appeal to the ICO.

Additionally, given the losses to local Somerset West and Taunton council taxpayers, there is a high public interest in understanding how NEPO and Bloom manage project failures under the NEPRO2 framework which confers privileges in respect of avoiding competitive tender and therefore suppliers (like Ignite) who have failed their contract should have their place on the NEPRO2 framework reviewed with a sanction of removal for egregious or repeated failures.

I contend that the public interest test has failed to take into account the purpose and history of my FOI requests (around an Ignite-led project failure adding £10m of costs to taxpayers and undercutting key service funding) and is therefore flawed.

It is my sincere belief that Ignite should no longer remain on the NEPRO2 framework and reap the benefits of winning business without competitive tenders when their record across two Somerset Councils is one of abject failure. I simply want to see how NEPO and Bloom should have dealt with those costly project failures under the Framework Agreement.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

Yours faithfully,

Dave Orr

NEPO Governance, North East Procurement Organisation

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Orr,

 

Please find attached response to your Freedom of Information request
submitted 23^rd January.

 

Kind regards,

 

Governance Team

North East Procurement Organisation (NEPO)

 

[1][email address] | [2]nepo.org

Guildhall, Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 3AF

Find us on: [3]LinkedIn | [4]Twitter

  

NEPRO³ recommended in new DfE guidance for schools: New guidance from the
Department for Education has singled out NEPRO³ as the preferred route for
educational settings to appoint and manage specialist professional
services. Find out more here [5]https://bit.ly/3mQEuN9   

 

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.nepo.org/
3. https://www.linkedin.com/company/nepo-no...
4. https://twitter.com/NEPOprocurement
5. https://bit.ly/3mQEuN9

Dear NEPO Governance,

Your FOI refusal of the pro forma contract with Bloom in a largely unredacted form has now been appealed to the ICO.

Yours sincerely,

Dave Orr

NEPO Governance, North East Procurement Organisation

3 Attachments

Good Morning,

 

Please see attached the updated response to Mr David Orr alongside the
updated NEPRO(2) Framework Contract.

 

Please do let us know if there are any actions to close of this case,
happy to support.

 

Kind regards,

 

Governance

NEPO

 

[1][email address] | 0191 638 0040

Northern Design Centre, Abbots Hill, Baltic Business Quarter, Gateshead,
NE8 3DF | [2]nepo.org

Find us on: [3]LinkedIn | [4]Twitter

 

[5]Graphical user interface Description automatically generated with
medium confidence

 

We’re excited to introduce our refreshed look and feel that marks a
brand-new chapter for NEPO. At the core of our new identity is ‘Procuring
for You’; an ethos that informs everything that we do. Find out more at
[6]nepo.org

 

 

References

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2. http://www.nepo.org/
3. https://www.linkedin.com/company/nepo-no...
4. https://twitter.com/NEPOprocurement
5. https://www.nepo.org/news-and-events/int...
6. http://www.nepo.org/