by DOUG COLLIE
The dissolution of two arms lengths companies, set up by Scottish Borders Council in 2015 to deliver adult social care services, may draw a line under a saga which saw councillors perform an embarrassing U-turn by taking the function back in-house less than five years later.
Limited Liability Partnerships or LLPs Scottish Borders Cares and Scottish Borders Supports finally disappeared from the Register of Companies yesterday (May 4th) following applications from the local authority to have them struck off.
There was unanimous support from elected members when the new social care model was presented to them by chief officers on three separate occasions - June 26th 2014, October 30th 2014 and finally on January 29th 2015.
Consultants Care & Health Solutions, based in Wolverhampton, received twelve separate payments from SBC totalling £160,854 for devising a version of an Arms Length External Organisation [ALEO] business which ultimately failed to achieve savings targets or service improvements.
In Borders terms the operation to shift responsibility for care from council to ALEO on April 1st 2015 was huge. It involved transferring 876 members of staff (570 full time equivalents) out of local authority employment. And the move was said to have brought anxiety to at least some of the 12,000 clients who would now rely on Scottish Borders Cares LLP. The carers carried out 15,000 visits per week to ensure frail and elderly residents were safe and comfortable.
There were rumblings throughout Scottish Borders Cares' short life that all was not well under the outsourced regime. And some of those concerns would be confirmed in a report presented to councillors in September 2019 which recommended abandoning the LLPs altogether.
The council-owned company had recorded total comprehensive deficits of £2.593 million in 2018/19 and £735,000 in the previous financial year. Those losses were attributed to a sizeable pensions adjustment and were under-written by the council.
This unsatisfactory financial situation took no account of other advantages enjoyed by Scottish Borders Cares. SBC leased it facilities for a peppercorn rent and provided a range of support facilities including Legal, Human Resources, Payroll and IT which the ALEO received free of charge.
The LLP's 2018/19 accounts reported: "While the LLP has delivered financial and service benefits since inception, it has struggled to realise the full potential of the model originally envisaged.
"After careful consideration it is the view of the council management team that the benefits of the ALEO structure for Scottish Borders Cares no longer outweight the challenges and risks now facing the business. These risks, which are likely to increase in future, make it appropriate to now reintegrate Scottish Borders Cares LLP and Scottish Borders Supports LLP into the council".
Scottish Borders Cares' fate was sealed by councillors, in private, on September 26th 2019 when a report by David Robertson, SBC's chief financial officer outlined the position. That report was subsequently made public.
The elected members were told: "Reporting of the performance of Scottish Borders Cares has been limited during the four years of operation, with the LLP often struggling to compile and present a suitably detailed and robust set of key performance and outcome measures when required.
"Against this background it has been difficult for elected members, the chief social worker, the chief officer of the Integrated Joint Board and staff overseeing commissioning budgets to gain a clear understanding of the issues facing the business and the performance, quality and overall safety of its services".
The governance arrangements for the oversight of Scottish Borders Cares were not operating effectively from a council perspective and alternative arrangements should be considered, according to Mr Robertson.
Projected savings over four years had fallen £822,000 short of target.
The report added: "It seems reasonable to conclude, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the majority of benefits have not been delivered solely due to the nature of the LLP and several could have been delivered by the council adopting similar approaches".
There were additional annual costs of £360,000 per annum associated with running the business, including additional staffing and governance costs.
Mr Robertson also pointed out that commercial trading flexibility by Scottish Borders Cares had been a major strategic consideration for setting up the LLP. But the benefits originally forecast had not been delivered.
Scottish Borders Cares was increasingly struggling to maintain consistently high standards and improve services across the Borders in all of its care settings while managing the day to day requirements of a complex front line service, the report concluded. And taking the service back 'in-house' was expected to achieve savings of £190,000 annually.
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