Archived decisions

7. Process Followed in Engaging an External Consultant as Programme Manager

7.1 Initial work on feasibility of a contact centre programme began in the summer of 2004.

7.2 Lead responsibility for the feasibility study and the preparation of a business case was given to the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager. While this was a management team level postholder in IT Services, reporting to the Head of IT Services, the reporting line on the Contact Centre programme was to the Contact Centre Board Chairman.

7.3 Initial feasibility work involved working with senior managers across the Council to develop the vision of what the Contact Centre programme would be designed to achieve, and developing the business case for taking it forward.

7.4 By early 2005, the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager had put the first draft of the business case together, including an estimate of costs for establishing and running the Contact Centre. He discussed with the Board Chairman the need to get an external validation of the financial business case based on experience of implementation of such projects elsewhere. There were two or three other County Councils who had implemented such projects, including Cambridgeshire and Kent. A number of local authorities had gone down the Contact Centre route, but few had embraced the depth and breadth of Contact Centre vision that was being proposed in Hampshire i.e. one that was intending to cover all frontline services provided by the Council, with the aim of resolving 80% of contacts without referral onwards to Departments.

7.5 The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager started a process of trawling consultants with relevant experience who were available. He looked to find an external consultant who had been deeply involved in a similar programme, and who therefore had the necessary experience to help validate the business case.

7.6 A number of agencies were approached, and CV's of five candidates obtained. One of these dropped out, and one it was decided not to interview. Three candidates attended a first interview. From these, two were shortlisted and invited back to give a presentation as part of a second interview. The presentation was on their vision for developing a Contact Centre to illustrate their understanding of the task. The interviews were conducted by the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager and a temporary consultant.

7.7 At the time of these interviews, the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager did have a draft role specification, which set out some criteria against which the candidates would be judged. However, this wasn't the final role profile for the Programme Manager job that was subsequently developed and put through the Council's job evaluation process. The specification used at the interviews was an earlier form of that. The attributes of the person being sought to do the initial validation exercise were similar to some of those that would be required for the Programme Manager. The evaluation criteria included approach, style, track record, and fee rates. References were also taken. However, it is clear that when the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager had gone to the agencies in preparation for these interviews, he was looking for someone to do the initial exercise of validating the business case, and not to appoint to the Programme Manager role.

7.8 The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager explained that the agencies received an email that sketched out the programme the Council was seeking to pursue, sufficient to identify suitable candidates. The communication was done in an informal way. He had understood that the agencies were given a draft role specification, but cannot be sure. He understood that sufficient information had been provided to the agencies to source appropriate candidates. It was viewed as a short sharp piece of work to do the validation exercise. At the time, he felt that if they subsequently needed to recruit a Programme Manager for the longer term, there would need to be a fuller recruitment process for that. The person engaged may well become a candidate for the Programme Manager role, but it was fully expected that the Programme Manager role would be filled following a more formal recruitment process. The more experienced of the two candidates interviewed was selected to do the initial validation exercise. It was clear from the presentations given and the interviews that he had much more in-depth experience to carry out this exercise.

7.9 Despite the above, the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager was not clear why the contract for this appointment commencing 13th June 2005 named the appointee ("Consultant A") as "Contact Centre Programme Manager". He viewed this as buying 20 working days of the appointee's time, and that it was a deliverables-based arrangement. A note of the outcomes that were required to be delivered was produced.

7.10 The second and third contracts for Consultant A, which commenced on 24th

      August and 15th November 2005, were not signed by the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager until 21st December 2005. No explanation has been given for the delay in signing.

7.11 By an email of 15th June 2005, the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager let the Board Chairman and Head of IT Services know that Consultant A had now been engaged on initial work. He flagged up that there would be a need to discuss the strategy for filling the key role of Programme Manager in the longer term. A role profile for a new post of "Programme manager - Customer Service Centre Implementation" was completed and dated 28th June 2005. At this stage, Cabinet go-ahead for the Project had still not been received.

7.12 On the 10th November 2005, the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager sent an email to the Contact Centre Board members setting out plans for the appointment process for the Programme Manager role. This followed discussions with the Council's HR Dept, Legal Practice and County Supplies. The plan was to place an advert on Hantsweb for internal candidates to respond to, and to invite responses from external agencies also. Comments were invited on the proposed approach.

7.13 The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager could not recall who the HR contact was who had given advice on this process. The advice was verbal. It is not clear what it was intended to put in the Hantsweb advert about the grade for the job, as it hadn't yet been evaluated. The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager was not sure what would have been said about the grade at that stage.

7.14 In any event, the advert did not then appear on Hantsweb. The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager had emailed the Board Chairman on 1st December 2005 saying:

"We will need a Programme Manager in place from beginning of January. [Consultant A] is a strong contender, but I have been advised we should go through an appropriate selection process. Again, I need to take your advice on this. We source [Consultant A] through an agency - he does not come cheap but you get what you pay for."

7.15 The Board Chairman replied by email of 2nd December 2005, saying:

"I think you have got yourself in a hole over the programme manager (and) by raising it before with all parties you have got predictable corporate response i.e. advertise it. I am personally not sure it is a good idea and if [Consultant A] is the strongest contender and it makes sense for our delivery then I believe I could find a way round this, so on this one it might be better to let sleeping dogs lie for a couple of weeks."

7.16 The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager's reaction to this was to be a bit surprised, but he felt that if a Chief Officer tells you that that is what we ought to do, he was unlikely to go against it. Both of them had recognised that the Contact Centre Programme was to be hugely complex, challenging and risky for the Council. Both recognised that it would be necessary to have external specialist skills and specialist experience. The holder of the Programme Manager role needed to be top drawer, and they had to be confident he or she could do the job. They had worked with Consultant A for 5 months, and knew he was an excellent candidate, with direct relevant experience of implementing similar exercises in other County Councils.

7.17 The Board Chair clarified to the Investigation Team what he had intended by this note. He said he was concerned that there had not been an entire definition of the roles of all of the project team, and how these would fit together, but yet the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager was planning to go forward to advertise the role of Programme Manager without this piece of work being completed. The Board Chairman was concerned that this was not a sensible way to proceed. He was concerned about the effect that going ahead and advertising the post would have on the rest of the project team. He had wanted to buy some space in time to work out what was required in the best interests of the project.

7.18 We discussed with the Board Chairman whether this was actually the message conveyed in the email, and whether an impression may have been given that the Board Chairman was discouraging the taking and/or following of advice from other corporate advisors. The Board Chairman said that he did not consider there to be any impression given that he was suggesting the avoidance of corporate controls. He simply did not feel that this was the right way or time to proceed. Consultant A was a very strong candidate for the role.

7.19 The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager emailed the Board Chairman on 16th January 2006, the Board Chairman having asked him to prepare a report on the Programme Manager role. The report was not shared with the Contact Centre Board. Appended to the report was the role profile for the "Programme manager - Customer Service Centre Implementation". The report stated that:

"Three agencies were approached in June 05 with the role specification to identify potential candidates..."

The Investigation Team queried that it was reasonable for a reader of the report to conclude that this meant the role specification appended to the report. This had in fact been completed on the 28th June 2005, after Consultant A had been engaged, and the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager had been unsure whether agencies approached in the selection process had actually been sent the earlier version of it (though he felt the experience required had been communicated to the agencies via an earlier draft).

7.20 The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager said that in bringing someone in to do the initial validation exercise and the subsequent planning tasks that were undertaken between mid-July and December, in effect that person was acting as an interim Programme Manager, and this was how he had been viewed at the time by the Contact Centre Board.

7.21 The report went on to state:

" There is a way that we can avoid formally advertising the role, even though the value is above the EU tendering threshold. This is by utilising our existing S-CAT/G-CAT framework agreement with Manpower. Commerce Partners can offer [Consultant A's] services through Manpower, although Manpower will wish to impose a small handling charge (1 - 2%). The alternative approach of engaging [Consultant A] in stages (£75k a time)would breach EU regulations as the cumulative costs would still be in breach of EU thresholds."

7.22 The recommendation in the report was:

"That we appoint [Consultant A] as Programme Manager for a period of up to two years, using the Manpower contract as the procurement vehicle."

7.23 On the 25th January 2006, the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager consulted County Supplies in connection with the making of arrangements with Manpower in respect of Consultant A. The matter was handled by the Contracts Officer with lead responsibility for matters relating to the Manpower framework contract.

7.24 The Contracts Officer spoke to Commerce Partners, and asked if they would be prepared to make a longer term contract for Consultant A via the Manpower contract. Commerce Partners did not wish to proceed in that way, but suggested an 18 month contract with agency fees reducing after six and twelve months. The Contracts Officer passed this proposal back to the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager by email dated 14th February 2006, stating:

"Although the strict procedures suggest that this amount of spend should be tendered, I think that [Consultant A] has become fully integrated into the Contact Centre project and it would be difficult to tender for an alternative. In addition, I don't think that we could guarantee a quick tender exercise for a complex consultancy role."

7.25 The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager then sent an email to the Board Chairman on 16th February 2006, confirming that the role profile had by then been considered by a Job Evaluation Panel.

7.26 The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager's email of 16th February 2006 also relayed to the Board Chairman the advice that he had received from County Supplies in the email of 14th February 2006.

7.27 The Investigation Team queried that, when relaying the Contracts Officer's advice, the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager did not state that the arrangement proposed was not now going to be through the Manpower Contract. The recommendation in the report to the Board Chairman of 16th January 2006 was that the appointment be made through the Manpower Contract. The Investigation Team queried why the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager had not therefore flagged up the significant change to the Board Chairman when seeking his approval to proceed.

7.28 The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager recalled a telephone conversation with the Board Chairman where he had pointed out to him that the recommendation to use the Manpower Contract as a vehicle was being countered by County Supplies, on the basis that it added no value, only additional cost. The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager could not recall the date of this conversation. The Board Chairman felt that if the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager brought this to his attention in a telephone conversation, it would have been something he would have remembered. However, the Board Chairman did not recall any such telephone conversation.

7.29 In retrospect, the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager felt it was a mistake not to have put this in writing. He also felt that, in retrospect, he should have checked out with the Legal Practice the legality of the revised proposal. However, he would query why County Supplies were recommending taking an illegal action.

7.30 In discussion on this point with the Contracts Officer, she said that in telephone conversations she had had with the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager at the time, she had made it very clear to him that the arrangement that was proposed by Commerce Partners was not compliant. We discussed the terms of her email of 14th February 2006 and she did not feel that this should have been taken by IT Services as any endorsement by County Supplies of the proposals that had been presented by Commerce Partners. The email needed to be read in the context of the other conversations that had taken place at the time.

7.31 In a memo to the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager and copied to the Head of Corporate and Legal Services emailed on the 22nd February 2006, the Board Chairman stated that he was content to proceed on the basis of the recommendation in the report of 16th January. This was subject to advice from the Head of Corporate and Legal Services on the proposal that Consultant A should be engaged on the basis set out in that report. In this memo, he stated:

" I should point out that the appointment would exceed the normal EU thresholds and is not completely in line with the County Council's Standing Orders on Contracts. My advice would be to run this past the Head of Corporate and Legal Services . If necessary I can put the matter to our Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel if the Head of Corporate and Legal Services thinks this is necessary."

7.32 The Head of Corporate and Legal Services responded by email dated 24th February 2006. On the basis that the appointment was to be made via the Manpower contract, he did not see any problem.

7.33 The position was therefore that both the Board Chairman and Head of Corporate and Legal Services were giving their approval to proceed with the proposal set out in the 16th January report i.e. that Consultant A be engaged via the Manpower contract, which would ensure compliance with EU procurement regulations and standing orders.

7.34 In his memo of 22 February, the Board Chairman had also sought the confirmation of the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager that he was satisfied with the performance of Consultant A, and the management framework and key milestones that would apply should he be appointed as Programme Manager. The E-Government and Corporate IT Manager replied positively on both points in a memo of 28th March 2006. In an email dated 4th April 2006, the Board Chairman gave final approval to the appointment of Consultant A to the role of Programme Manager. This was then subsequently recorded in a formal contract for 385 working days, signed by the E-Government and Corporate IT Manager, on behalf of the Council, dated 19th April 2006, and Commerce Partners, who signed on 3rd May 2006.