Award of the Equality Advisory Support Service 2016: Access to the tender specification, explanation of the tender process, PSED compliance and equality impact assessment

The request was partially successful.

Dear Government Equalities Office,

It has been reported in the Press that G4S has been awarded the contract to run the Equality Advisory Support Service with effect from 1st October 2016. Furthermore despite searching, I have been unable to locate the 2016 EASS tender specification or associated paperwork.

Access to the 2016 EASS tender specification
The 2011 tender specification for the EASS was, and is, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy... published by the GEO on 18/11/11. It was also advertised on UnitedKingdom-Tenders.co.uk - http://england.unitedkingdom-tenders.co....

Question 1: Can you please direct me to a UK government website or another public website containing the 2016 EASS tender specification?

Access to the equality impact assessment or equality analysis
Clearly this tender engages the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Question 2: Did the GEO produce either an equality analysis or equality impact assessment in relation to the 2016 EASS tender specification?
Question 3: Did the GEO manage the tender process for the EASS tender process or was the process managed by external contractors?
Question 4: If the process was managed by external contractors which external contractors managed the 2016 EASS tender process?
Question 5: Can you please direct me to the equality impact assessment or equality analysis produced in relation to the final 2016 EASS tender specification?

The EHRC identified that it had concerns about the tender specification produced by the GEO - 'The Government .... invited us to comment on the draft specification for the service and issued a new invitation to tender in April 2016.'

Question 6: Were all of the concerns raised by the EHRC addressed by the GEO amending the tender specification published in April 2016?
Question 7: If yes, what changes were made to address the concerns raised by the EHRC? If any of the EHRC's concerns were not addressed, which issues were not addressed and why?

The tender process for the EASS in 2016 and the PSED
Question 8: Was the tender process an open one?
Question 9: When did the process start in 2016, what were the main phases and when was the EASS contract provisionally awarded?
Question 10: How many organisations submitted bids to run the EASS in 2016?
Question 11: What was the size of the 3 year contract?

This contract fully engages the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty?
Question 12: Did the tender assessment process assess the successful track record of potential contractors in providing advice on equalities' matters?
Question 13: If the assessment process did seek to assess that contractors had a successful track record of providing advice on equalities matters, how was this done?
Question 14: Did the tender assessment process ensure that potential contractors did not have a serious track record of non-compliance with UK equality or human rights legislative requirements?
Question 15: If the assessment process did seek to assess that contractors had no serious track record of non-compliance with UK equality or human rights legislative requirements, how was this done?
Question 16: What monitoring arrangements have been included in the contract to ensure that a high quality service EASS is provided by the successful contractor?

Please respond promptly within 20 days of receipt of this request. If you are unable to answer any of my questions within the 20 day time limit please promptly answer and respond to those that can be answered and explain when you will be able to respond to any outstanding questions.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Leander Neckles

Department for Education

Dear Dr Neckles

Thank you for your recent enquiry. A reply will be sent to you as soon as possible. For information; the departmental standard for correspondence received is that responses should be sent within 20 working days as you are requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Your correspondence has been allocated reference number 2016-0037446.

Thank you

Department for Education
Ministerial and Public Communications Division
Tel: 0370 000 2288

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Department for Education

Dear Leander Neckles

Case ref: 2016-0037446

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 2 August. You asked sixteen questions about the awarding to G4S by Government of the contract to run the Equality Advisory Support Service from 01 October 2016. I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

On your questions 6, 7, 11 and 16 below, the Department is unable to confirm whether it holds the information you have requested, because it estimates that the cost of determining whether it holds the information would exceed the cost threshold applicable to central Government. This is £600 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3½ working days in determining whether the Department holds the information.

Under section 12 of the Act the Department is therefore not obliged to comply with those aspects of your request and will not be processing these further.
Your other questions can be answered without involving FoI-related cost estimates and I have therefore responded to them accordingly.
However, if you were to make a new request for a narrower category of information or limit the scope of your request, the Department may be able to comply with your request within the cost limit, although I cannot guarantee that this will be the case.

It may help if you were to narrow your request, for example by concentrating on priority concerns.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled, you should make a complaint to the Department by writing to me within two calendar months of the date of this letter. Your complaint will be considered by an independent review panel, who were not involved in the original consideration of your request.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint to the Department, you may then contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Yours sincerely

Charles M Ramsden

Deputy Director

Government Equalities Office

You requested information as follows:

It has been reported in the Press that G4S has been awarded the contract to run the Equality Advisory Support Service with effect from 1st October 2016. Furthermore, despite searching, I have been unable to locate the 2016 EASS tender specification or associated paperwork.

Access to the 2016 EASS tender specification The 2011 tender specification for the EASS was, and is, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy... published by the GEO on 18/11/11. It was also advertised on UnitedKingdom-Tenders.co.uk - http://england.unitedkingdom-tenders.co<http://england.unitedkingdom-tenders.co/>....

Question 1: Can you please direct me to a UK government website or another public website containing the 2016 EASS tender specification?

The Specification will be published in due course on https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.... once the contract has been commenced from 01/10/16.

Question 3: Did the GEO manage the tender process for the EASS tender process or was the process managed by external contractors?

The process was managed by GEO staff, assisted by other Government officials from DfE, DEFRA and the MOJ.

Question 4: If the process was managed by external contractors which external contractors managed the 2016 EASS tender process?

N/A (answer to Question 3 refers).

Question 2: Did the GEO produce either an equality analysis or equality impact assessment in relation to the 2016 EASS tender specification?

Question 5: Can you please direct me to the equality impact assessment or equality analysis produced in relation to the final 2016 EASS tender specification?

See answer to Question 1 above. The specification will be published on the relevant Government website once the contract has commenced.

Question 8: Was the tender process an open one?

Before commencing an open competition, Government Departments are obliged to consider whether there are existing Government frameworks that could be utilised. The suppliers on any framework have already been through a compliant EU process and have demonstrated the appropriate level of expertise required to perform the particular service required. As financial and skills due diligence tests have already been completed by suppliers in order to be added to a particular framework, this allows more time for a thorough evaluation of the services provided by the framework suppliers as part of any bid.

The EASS tendering process duly used the DWP framework for Contact Centre Services.

Question 9: When did the process start in 2016, what were the main phases and when was the EASS contract provisionally awarded?

Initial pre-consultation with the six organisations on the relevant framework began in January 2016. The tender issued on 5 April. The deadline for receipt of the Tender documents was 5 May. The contract was provisionally awarded on 24 June.

Question 10: How many organisations submitted bids to run the EASS in 2016?

Three organisations submitted bids.

Question 12: Did the tender assessment process assess the successful track record of potential contractors in providing advice on equalities' matters?

Question 13: If the assessment process did seek to assess that contractors had a successful track record of providing advice on equalities matters, how was this done?

Question 14: Did the tender assessment process ensure that potential contractors did not have a serious track record of non-compliance with UK equality or human rights legislative requirements?

Question 15: If the assessment process did seek to assess that contractors had no serious track record of non-compliance with UK equality or human rights legislative requirements, how was this done?

Tenders were assessed against the prospective service providers’ ability to meet the Specification for running the EASS. All those potential providers had previously met the criteria to be included on the DWP framework for Contact Centre Services.

Dear Department for Education,

10th September 2016

For the attention of Charles Ramsden
Deputy Director, the Government Equalities Office

Subject: the GEO’s failure to properly respond to my FOIA request (ref 2016-0037446)

I have taken some time to carefully consider your partial response to my FOIA request (2016-0037446). I am writing to request a review of your decisions/responses to my FOIA request, the immediate provision of the information requested on 2nd August 2016 and to express my concerns.

To ensure that you are clear what remains outstanding, I have set out my specific concerns in relation to your responses to each of the questions raised on 2nd August 2016. Where you have addressed the question, I have also made this clear and thank you.

Before addressing your specific responses to the individual questions, I wish to note two overarching concerns. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is intended to ensure that public bodies are clear whether they hold requested information and if they do they should provide that information unless exempted from so doing. The Act should therefore encourage openness and candour. Unfortunately, not single document requested was provided nor were your responses clear about what information the GEO holds. Your approach was therefore a matter of concern to me and I also hope that it will be a matter of concern to the internal review. I hope that lessons may be learnt for the future. My second overarching concern is that you have refused to answer four questions on the basis that it would take more 3.5 days/ cost the equivalent of more than £600. I would ask both you and the internal review to note that the EASS is a high profile national equalities and human rights helpline that has recently been the subject of specific recommendations from a House of Lords Select Committee. That same Committee heard concerns about the service being delivered by the contractor appointed in 2012 and concerns about the quality and nature of the service. In the circumstances, I simply cannot understand how the GEO could possibly say that it will take more than 3.5 working days to dig out information that should be immediately at hand.

You will see that I have repeated my original requests below and asked for the information to be provided immediately. Where relevant, I have explained why I believe that the information should be held by the GEO and explained why it should be disclosed, not that the FOIA requires me to explain my reasons. As you may decide not to respond positively to some or all of these requests, I am triggering the internal review process with this correspondence. I would be grateful if you would respond promptly confirming when the internal review is commencing or has commenced and what my rights are in this process. Should you remain unable or unwilling to respond to these reasonable requests made under the FOIA, I intend to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.

Question 1: I asked to be directed to the website which contained the 2016 EASS specification. I had understood that all government contracts must be advertised. Your response says that the contract specification will be published but not until 1st October 2016 when the contract commences. As the GEO clearly holds this information, I ask for the 2016 EASS specification to be provided immediately as you have informed me that you hold the document but not provided it. I asked for access to the tender specification but also expected through that process to access the advert. Does the GEO have the advert and if so please provide this immediately.

Questions 2 and 5: I asked for access to the equality impact assessment or equality analysis for the 2016 EASS tender specification used in April 2016. You have not said whether this document exists and no document has been provided. You have instead directed me to your intention to publish the EASS specification on 1st October 2016. I repeat my request that you provide the equality impact assessment or equality analysis immediately. Alternatively, if no such document was produced please confirm that.

Questions 6 and 7: You have refused to respond to question 6 on FOIA cost grounds. I refer you to my earlier general comments re the 3.5 days. My question asked how you had addressed concerns expressed by the EHRC about the EASS specification. I referenced the EHRC’s concerns which are a matter of public record and form part of the EHRC's formal response to a House of Lord Select Committee. I again repeat my request for the immediate provision of the information requested on 2nd August in response to this question. Given the GEO's obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty, I believe that there should be clear records identifying how the GEO dealt with the issues raised by the EHRC (referenced in my FOIA request). There should also be a document that shows how those concerns were addressed. If no such document/documents exist(s) which is/are easily and quickly accessible this would raise serious questions about compliance with the PSED and how seriously the GEO took the concerns raised by the EHRC. I look forward to receipt of the relevant documentation.

Question 8: I asked whether the tendering process was an open one. Unfortunately, whilst your response provides some information about the tendering process, it does not answer the question. Although the information provided indicates that the tendering process was not an open one. So I ask again, was the tendering process an open one? Do you hold the information and what is the answer?

Questions 9 and 10: Thank you for the clear responses to both of these questions which you have answered.

Question 11: You have also refused to answer this question on FOIA cost grounds. I refer you to my earlier general comments re the 3.5 days. The question asked what was the size of the 3 year contract (EASS 2016). I believe that you must hold this information and that it cannot be difficult to access. I say that it cannot take any time to access because the GEO has recently completed the tendering process and intends for the contract to commence on 1st October 2016. I note that the size of the budget was a matter of public record in relation to the EASS tender process in 2011, when the budget was £6m over 3 years. As you must hold this information, I again repeat my request for the immediate provision of this information.

Questions 12, 13, 14 and 15: Instead of saying whether you hold the information or responding directly to my questions you have said that bidders were assessed against the EASS specification that to date you have failed to provide to me. You have also said that potential bidders had previously met criteria to be included on the DWP framework but you have failed to provide any relevant documentation and failed to respond to the questions. I again repeat my request for these questions to be answered and ask you to disclose the relevant documentation.

Question 16: You have also refused to answer this question on FOIA cost grounds. I refer you to my earlier general comments re the 3.5 days. I asked about monitoring arrangements for the EASS contract. Again it is hard to believe that the GEO does not have at its immediate disposal the documents that clearly set out how the contract will be managed to ensure a high quality service is provided. I would have anticipated that at minimum there would be clear requirements in the 2016 EASS specification to which I should have been directed and a copy should have been provided. Furthermore, there must be documents that have already been developed to ensure that the contract can be monitored. I note that the House of Lords Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and the Disabled raised a series on concerns about the EASS, so it would be surprising indeed if this had not focused minds at the GEO. Moreover, I believe that the EHRC also raised concerns. The PSED compliance should mean that there is a clear paper trail.

I do hope that on reflection, you and/or the review team, will understand and share my concerns. I look forward to hearing back from you re my request to the immediate provision of the information requested and/or the commencement of the review process.

I have one request not posed in my original FOIA request and that that is could you also direct me to the GEO's publication scheme under the FOIA 2000.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Leander Neckles

Department for Education

Thank you for your message. Please note that from 1st October 2016 this email address is changing to [email address]

MacNAUGHTON, Kris,

1 Attachment

Hi Dr Neckles,

Further to the email sent to you today on the outcome of the internal
review you requested for an FOI request about the EASS contract.

Please see attached a copy of the EASS specification.

Many thanks

Kris

 

Kris MacNaughton

Government Equalities Office

Sanctuary Buildings, 20 Great Smith Street SW1P 3BT

[1][email address] |020 7340 8320/07718
696951|[2]www.gov.uk/geo

 

 

References

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Department for Education

Dear Dr Neckles

Case ref: 2016-0042063
I am writing to inform you that the Department has now completed its internal appeal process following your complaint of 13 September regarding a request for information made under the FOIA (case ref: 2016-0037446).
The Department has made an independent re-assessment of the case, chaired by a senior officer who was not involved with the original request and has decided that while some of the information cannot be disclosed for the reasons set out below (or where appropriate, for the same reasons as set out in the letter of 31 August), some information can be released.

A copy of the information which can be disclosed is enclosed/attached:
· A copy of the EASS specification (Q1, 12, 13, 14 and 15), see attached document in separate email.

· The specification includes equality analysis information (Q2 and 5).

· A summary of the EASS contract can be found on the Gov.UK Contract Finder with details of the contract’s value (Q11). The full contract will be published on the website shortly.

https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.....

· Further information on drafting process for the EASS specification for 2016 retendering (Q6 and 7).

* A substantial amount of work was done to improve the specification from that originally used in 2012, for instance having more stringent Key Performance Indicators which could be used to assess the winning bidder’s performance in delivering the service. As part of this process, the EHRC’s comments were invited and it commented extensively on an early draft.

· Further information on the tendering process (Q8).

* The process was open and competitive within the pre-agreed government framework. The Invitation to Tender for the Service was issued on 5 April 2016. We received bids from three providers on the Framework – Sitel, G4S and one other. The bids were assessed by a panel of officials from GEO, Department for Education and the Ministry of Justice (the latter because of the human rights aspect of the EASS’ work). All three bids were within budget, but the G4S bid was both the cheapest and the best quality, assessed against 27 criteria included in the specification. G4S Outsourcing already runs the Child Maintenance Options helpline for DWP, and intended building on that experience to run the EASS.

* Information on due diligence (Q12 and 13).

o G4S has run the Child Maintenance Options (CMO) helpline since 2010 and has met its KPIs in both terms of volume and quality. When any issues have arisen, G4S has listened and adjusted its service accordingly. There is a good working relationship between DWP and G4s, described as ‘positive’. More widely, there has been no adverse media coverage of G4s in its handling of the CMO. The two helplines seem to have similarities between their roles and the way in which advisors would deal with members of the public, although the CMO is done on a much larger scale – it has around170 advisors whereas the anticipated cadre for the EASS would be about 20.

· New question on GEO’s publication scheme under FOIA 2000

* The GEO follows the DfE’s publication scheme which can be seen on the following website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati...

Reasons why some of the information cannot be disclosed:

The decision on the cost threshold had been properly calculated (Qs 6, 7 and 16).

* We applied the exemption section 12 of the FOIA to your request as we estimated that to respond would take us over the cost threshold, as outlined in our initial response. We are not in a position to provide you with specific parts of the information requested within these questions, without you first being able to specify which part, or parts, of your request you would prefer to receive information on. The guidance on this provided by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) states the following:
“As a matter of good practice, public authorities should avoid providing the information found as a result of its searching and claiming section 12 for the remainder of the information. It is accepted that this is often done with the intention of being helpful but it ultimately denies the requestor the right to express a preference as to which part or parts of the request they may wish to receive which can be provided under the appropriate limit.”

* However, if you are able to provide this clarity, and so reduce the scope of your request in relation to these questions, we may then be able to provide some of the information requested, obviously depending on other FOIA exemptions that may apply.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by copyright. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including for private study and non-commercial research, and for any other purpose authorised by an exception in current copyright law. Documents (except photographs) can be also used in the UK without requiring permission for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder.

Most documents produced by a government department or agency will be protected by Crown Copyright. Most Crown copyright information can be re-used under the Open Government Licence (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/o...). For information about the OGL and about re-using Crown Copyright information please see The National Archives website -http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/infor... .

Copyright in other documents may rest with a third party. For information about obtaining permission from a third party see the Intellectual Property Office’s website at www.ipo.gov.uk<http://www.ipo.gov.uk/>.

If you are unhappy with the decision to withhold part of the information sought, you have the right to appeal directly to the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

If the Commissioner comes to the conclusion that that the information should be released, he will issue a decision notice which will set out the steps which the Department must take and the date by which they must be taken.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote our reference number in any future communications.

Yours etc
Charles M Ramsden
Deputy Director
Government Equalities Office