Innovative framework contract for agency staff set to generate millions of pounds of efficiency savings

A group of 14 East Midland councils have joined together in a collaborative exercise to engage Comensura - the UK’s leading managed service provider of temporary agency staff - to provide a ‘vendor neutral’ management service for the 14 authorities for a minimum of three years.

It is estimated that the combined spend of those currently participating in the framework is in the region of £4million per annum. If the current partners make use of this framework to its fullest potential then cashable savings of up to 10% per annum could be realised.

This innovative framework contract is open to all public service bodies in the UK and is set to generate millions of pounds of efficiency savings nationally.

ESPO and Comensura will be hosting an open day on Thursday 29th March 2007 for public sector bodies who would like to learn more about this framework contract and the steps needed to be taken in order to participate.

Project Background

In 2006 a group of 14 East Midlands local authorities joined together to procure a temporary staffing solution that would fulfil a wide range of staffing requirements. The Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO) was engaged to assist the partnership in the procurement process, input and support was also provided by the East Midlands Centre of Excellence (EMCE) and the Office of Government Commerce (OGC).

By aggregating demand and introducing some common approaches to the management of their requirements the authorities were able to leverage more benefits from the framework than would have been available individually.

This framework will support the Gershon efficiency agenda by contributing towards a wide range of cashable and non-cashable savings.

Councils using the framework are expected to achieve the following benefits:

• Cashable cost savings through the renegotiation of agency rates, temporary to permanent fees and standardisation of worker pay, overtime and expenses
• Non-cashable cost savings achieved through improved back-office processes
• Improvements to the recruitment process
• Visibility of all recruitment processes
• Enhanced compliance with legislative and policy requirements
• Improved accuracy in the provision of management information.

The following councils have elected to participate in the framework:

The Regional Centres of Excellence understand that local authority spend on agency staff is very high and have published a toolkit called “Transforming the Procurement of Temporary, Agency and Interim Staff”. This publication offers a step-by-step guide to enable local authorities to control their agency staff spend.

Feb 07